From geert at desk.nl Sat Jun 1 05:42:21 2002 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 10:12:21 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Washinton post's review of OpenOffice References: <20020530145716.A7937@sarai.net> Message-ID: <03b301c20901$205565c0$97de3dca@geert> > Mozilla also reached 1.0 just a few days ago Not quite yet, sorry Pankaj, you are a bit early. Mozilla 1.0 might be released in a few weeks. Mozilla 1.0 RC3 Released In response to the feedback from RC2, we have released Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 3, our last planned candidate before we release Mozilla 1.0. Try it out and let us know if you find any really serious problems. Read the Release Notes for more details. Mozilla 1.0 Party Join us in celebrating the upcoming release of Mozilla 1.0 at a party we're throwing at 8pm Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. Free source, free admission, cash bar. 21+, ID required (no matter how old you look). If you can't make it, plan a satellite party in your own area. From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Sat Jun 1 07:19:41 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 02:49:41 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Draft Appeal Against War by UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Message-ID: <20020601014941.62178.qmail@web20302.mail.yahoo.com> To All UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors Dear Colleague, I am worried, as you must be, by the deepening clouds of war hovering over South Asia. There is very little that the International community can do to stop this insanity of nuclear confrontation which would destroy life and property on an unimaginable scale, except to make appeals such as the following which I have drafted for your kind approval. "We, the undersigned Goodwill Ambassadors of UNESCO are deeply concerned about the dangerous escalating tension between India and Pakistan as the outbreak of war between the two countries shall inevitably end up in nuclear confrontation, now that both India and Pakistan are armed with weapons of mass destruction. The horrible death and destruction caused by nuclear war and its disastrous consequences would further aggravate the suffering of the deprived masses in South Asia". "At this critical crossroads of history, we earnestly call upon the governments of India and Pakistan to heed the advice of International community and the anti-terrorist sentiments of their own people who are largely against this fratricidal war. It is only by resolving their disputes in the spirit of the sub-continent=B9s great common culture of non-violence and tolerance that their leaders could guide their poverty-stricken people towards peace and prosperity and save the world from its annihilating repercussions". Kindly do convey your consent at the address below as the matter is most urgent. This will enable me to internationally publicize this appeal in the media. May I also take this opportunity to inform you that in order to step up the campaign against the sentiment of war, the biannual "UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence" has now been raised to hundred thousand dollars from the previous amount of forty thousand dollars. The award was established to mark the 125th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi by the UNESCO Executive Board at its 146th session at Paris and Fez on 16 May=8B4 June 1995. Among the laureates, the 1998 Prize was jointly won by Indian and Pakistani anti-nuclear activists =8B Mr. Narayan Desai and his Shanti Sena (Peace Brigade) for promoting education and youth training camps and Ms. Shahtaj Kizilbash, representing thirty NGOs in Pakistan that are working against all odds for women=B9s rights and religious tolerance. Madanjeet Singh UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador Founder, South Asia Foundation ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From supreet at sarai.net Sat Jun 1 19:58:24 2002 From: supreet at sarai.net (Supreet Sethi) Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 10:28:24 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] HOME RECORDING OF COPYRIGHTED WORKS Message-ID: <200206010344.FAA22892@mail.waag.org> This is transcript of court proceding. http://cryptome.org/hrcw-hear.htm Supreet -- Chaos reigns within. Reflect, repent, and retry. Server shall return. From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Sat Jun 1 14:01:24 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 1 Jun 2002 08:31:24 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Friend/Enemy Message-ID: <20020601083124.469.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020601/976b785f/attachment.pl From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Sat Jun 1 14:02:02 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 1 Jun 2002 08:32:02 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Friend/Enemy Message-ID: <20020601083202.835.qmail@webmail26.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020601/14fbfca1/attachment.pl From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 1 07:33:38 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Sat, 01 Jun 2002 11:03:38 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Press release In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020531114445.00b01dd8@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in> Message-ID: Press Release Censor Board at war with “WAR AND PEACE War and Peace a three hour long documentary by Anand Patwardhan won two major awards at the recently concluded 7th Mumbai International Film Festival the Best Film/Video of the Festival, and the International Jury Award. The video begins and ends with the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. Focusing on the danger of nuclear war in the Indian subcontinent it goes on to describe the problems faced by people living near nuclear testing and mining sites, the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the culpability of the USA in using Atom bombs on a nation that was about to surrender, the globalization of the arms trade, but most of all it derives its power and emotional appeal from the growing movement for peace both in India and in Pakistan. We submitted the film to be certified by the Censor Board on April 15. Following the wide acceptance garnered by the film from the press and public alike, we felt this would be a mere formality. We were wrong. From April 15 till April 30 we were twice issued the wrong forms by the Censor Board, causing long delays. Finally our preview tape was accepted on April 30 but fault was found with the paging of the transcripts, and later, with the binding of the transcripts. In any case our tape remained with the Censor Board from April 30 till today (more than a month). Finally on May 27 our application was deemed correct and complete. Now a new saga began. We were asked to stay in touch with an officer of the Censor Board who would set up the Censor screening after the examining committee had been named. We called this officer everyday for four days only to be told that there was a delay because the Censor Board needed to locate a Japanese translator who could verify that our Japanese translations were correct. This seemed to be a strange problem as the only Japanese in our video is the testimony of Atom bomb survivors and this is hardly controversial enough to warrant such scrutiny of the Censor Board! What we had first thought to be mere bureaucratic delay and incompetence turned out to be something much more deliberate. The Sudhir Yardi Memorial trust had obtained special permission from the Police and Entertainment Tax Departments to screen “War and Peace” at the YB Chavan Centre in Mumbai on the 1st of June as it was an award winning film and it was a non-commercial screening. On May 30, Mr. Vijay Desai of the Chavan Centre received an angry call from Mr. Singhla, Regional Officer of the Censor Board, Mumbai threatening dire consequences if the screening went ahead. I phoned Mr. Singhla to find out whether in view of the impending screening, the Censor viewing could be expedited or if special permission could be granted for the screening. He was brusque and arrogant while denying the permission and stated that the Censor viewing would take its own time. He also added that our video would run into trouble because it had references to the Tehelka arms scandal which was sub-judice. I was shocked. Not only is he wrong in that the Tehelka issue is up before a fact finding commission of enquiry and not in a court of law and therefore cannot be sub-judice, but how did he know that our video had referenced Tehelka? This is a tiny fraction of our 3 hour video and occurs toward the end. Did the Regional Officer watch our video himself before constituting an examining committee? Is that the act of an impartial officer or of an interested party? I went on to point out that the Films Division of India which comes under the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting had not only awarded our video but was about to screen all award winning films and videos of MIFF 2002 in Kolkata regardless of whether they had censor certificates. “War and Peace” was to be the inaugural film on 31st May. At this Mr. Singhla laughed and said “Let us see how they show the film”. He was right. This Regional Officer has powers that go beyond his region. I learnt on May 31 that our video had been withdrawn at the last minute from the Kolkata festival. The Films Division could not use the argument about the censor certificate as many films they were showing had no certificate. So they told the press that our video “had not arrived”. When the press contacted us we had documentary proof that the Films Division had signed a receipt for the film two weeks ago! Then they said that the film had arrived but the quality was bad. But I had a letter from them only three days ago inviting me to come to Kolkata for the inauguration. The letter does not mention either the non-arrival or the bad quality of our video. I do not blame officials of the Films Division of anything more than wanting to protect their jobs. They were going to show “War and Peace” in all sincerity until rudely stopped by some invisible force. This invisible force has in the last 15 years taken our country to the abyss. I want this invisible force to come clean and reveal itself to the public gaze. Let it openly declare that it does not believe in democracy or in the values propagated by Mahatma Gandhi. These values of non-violence and religious tolerance are what “War and Peace celebrates and hopes to rekindle in our psychologically and physically scarred region of the globe. Anand Patwardhan 1st June 2002 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020601/2f79e8d0/attachment.html From igcionito at mail.com Sun Jun 2 04:38:28 2002 From: igcionito at mail.com (Ignacio Nieto) Date: Sat, 01 Jun 2002 18:08:28 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Periferic Extensions Message-ID: <20020601230829.22653.qmail@mail.com> Contest Calling Periferic Extensions Hack the Borderline 3.0 - Borderhack is a camp/festival, part of the chain of bordercamps "Kein mensch ist illegal", being Tijuana its host, in the Playas de Tijuana delegation, in front of the borderline, just when it goes down the sea. During three days , August 16, 17 and 18 of 2002 there’ll be settled a camping where several activities will take part, such as conferences, speeches, classes, photographic exhibitions, digital art and multimedia interactives, films and documentals projections, as well as computer area, where the festival will be in contact with the rest of the world by net, showing some of the activities and updating information on the web page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If at the beginnings of the past decade, it was thought, ingenuously, that after a line of militar governments, Latinamerican democratic institutions were consolidated as platforms to solve social , politic and economic problematics, at the end they were only useful to unveil the governments limits. Psychological Frontiers “Vladivideos” led us know the dark ways between security organisms and the high camera of Perú, erasing the national hero image, starring ex president Fujimori, and being induced by himself, to the public opinion. Social Frontiers Failed strike showed us a Venezuelan society divided in two factions, one of each very illiterate, and the other pretty greedy. Symbolic Frontiers The posponed version of the Sao Paulo Biennal has left, as a result, the turistic mythification of a country used only to export exotic stuff, divided between the tv soaps and the Deep Brazil. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 You’re invited to the making of a project, if you live in Latinamerica and the Caribe. 2 The project will be about phisical interventions inside a metropolitan context. 2.1 These interventions, will have to unveil symbolic, social and psychological frontiers. 3 The projects will be sent by postal mail to: Ignacio Nieto Ipacarai 1450, Vitacura Santiago, Chile 3.1 It will content: a) Project (Description, fundaments and objetives of it) b) A sketch graphically explaining its making c) Curriculum Vitae d) Cathalogs and photographies of exhibitions, or pieces made by the aspirant. 4. The closing date to send the project will be July 25th of 2002. All the works arrived after that date won’t be admissed. 5 The projects will be checked and sellected. The chosen ones will be notified by e-mail, on August 5th, to the inclusion in the Borderhack 3.0 program. 5.1 Since Borderhack is an independent exhibition without money involved, the stuff received won’t be returned. 6 The chosen interventions have to be made the days of August 16, 17 and18, in sinchronicity with the festival in Tijuana. 7 Public interventions have to be registered by video or photograpies. 7.1 Each chosen participant will invite a person to write a text about his/her work. 7.2 Each participant has to create a map to show where the interventions has been made. 7.3 Texts, registers and maps will be sent for a future cathalog, and for a web page. Those have to be sent to the next address: Ignacio Nieto Ipacarai 1450, Vitacura Santiago, Chile 7.3.1 The closing date to send the register and the texts will be September 5th. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Extensiones Perifericas Borderhack 3.0 Ignacio Nieto Ipacarai 1450 Vitacura Santiago Chile Movil 095114452 igcionito at mail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ People who have participated on versions before: Florian Schneider // Dj Spooky // Micro radio Aztlan // Robin Rimbaud aka // Scanner // Cristine Wang // JODI // Rtmark // Mark Dery // Ricardo Dominguez // Geert Lovink // Douglas Rushkoff // Apsolutno // Antonio Alvarado // Arcangel Constantini // Raul Ferrera Balanquet // Pedro Jiménez // Andreja Kuluncic // OG Mass T. Lander // Pavu.com // Francesca Da Rimini // Trebor Scholz // Ventsislav Zankov // Dan Arenzon // David Casacuberta // Quim Gil // Pacho // Jenny Marketou // Klub Radio // Sarah Lewinson Rafael Lozano Hemmer // Larry Shaw // Alex Rivera // La place // Natalie Bookchin // Osfavelados Fiambrera(españa)/CalArts // Ford Proco // Eddo Stern // Gloria Marti // Arturo Fuentes -- _______________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup From igcionito at mail.com Sun Jun 2 05:11:11 2002 From: igcionito at mail.com (Ignacio Nieto) Date: Sat, 01 Jun 2002 18:41:11 -0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Periferic Extensions Message-ID: <20020601234111.781.qmail@mail.com> Contest Calling Periferic Extensions Hack the Borderline 3.0 - Borderhack is a camp/festival, part of the chain of bordercamps "Kein mensch ist illegal", being Tijuana its host, in the Playas de Tijuana delegation, in front of the borderline, just when it goes down the sea. During three days , August 16, 17 and 18 of 2002 there’ll be settled a camping where several activities will take part, such as conferences, speeches, classes, photographic exhibitions, digital art and multimedia interactives, films and documentals projections, as well as computer area, where the festival will be in contact with the rest of the world by net, showing some of the activities and updating information on the web page. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ If at the beginnings of the past decade, it was thought, ingenuously, that after a line of militar governments, Latinamerican democratic institutions were consolidated as platforms to solve social , politic and economic problematics, at the end they were only useful to unveil the governments limits. Psychological Frontiers “Vladivideos” led us know the dark ways between security organisms and the high camera of Perú, erasing the national hero image, starring ex president Fujimori, and being induced by himself, to the public opinion. Social Frontiers Failed strike showed us a Venezuelan society divided in two factions, one of each very illiterate, and the other pretty greedy. Symbolic Frontiers The posponed version of the Sao Paulo Biennal has left, as a result, the turistic mythification of a country used only to export exotic stuff, divided between the tv soaps and the Deep Brazil. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 You’re invited to the making of a project, if you live in Latinamerica and the Caribe. 2 The project will be about phisical interventions inside a metropolitan context. 2.1 These interventions, will have to unveil symbolic, social and psychological frontiers. 3 The projects will be sent by postal mail to: Ignacio Nieto Ipacarai 1450, Vitacura Santiago, Chile 3.1 It will content: a) Project (Description, fundaments and objetives of it) b) A sketch graphically explaining its making c) Curriculum Vitae d) Cathalogs and photographies of exhibitions, or pieces made by the aspirant. 4. The closing date to send the project will be July 25th of 2002. All the works arrived after that date won’t be admissed. 5 The projects will be checked and sellected. The chosen ones will be notified by e-mail, on August 5th, to the inclusion in the Borderhack 3.0 program. 5.1 Since Borderhack is an independent exhibition without money involved, the stuff received won’t be returned. 6 The chosen interventions have to be made the days of August 16, 17 and18, in sinchronicity with the festival in Tijuana. 7 Public interventions have to be registered by video or photograpies. 7.1 Each chosen participant will invite a person to write a text about his/her work. 7.2 Each participant has to create a map to show where the interventions has been made. 7.3 Texts, registers and maps will be sent for a future cathalog, and for a web page. Those have to be sent to the next address: Ignacio Nieto Ipacarai 1450, Vitacura Santiago, Chile 7.3.1 The closing date to send the register and the texts will be September 5th. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Extensiones Perifericas Borderhack 3.0 Ignacio Nieto Ipacarai 1450 Vitacura Santiago Chile Movil 095114452 igcionito at mail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ People who have participated on versions before: Florian Schneider // Dj Spooky // Micro radio Aztlan // Robin Rimbaud aka // Scanner // Cristine Wang // JODI // Rtmark // Mark Dery // Ricardo Dominguez // Geert Lovink // Douglas Rushkoff // Apsolutno // Antonio Alvarado // Arcangel Constantini // Raul Ferrera Balanquet // Pedro Jiménez // Andreja Kuluncic // OG Mass T. Lander // Pavu.com // Francesca Da Rimini // Trebor Scholz // Ventsislav Zankov // Dan Arenzon // David Casacuberta // Quim Gil // Pacho // Jenny Marketou // Klub Radio // Sarah Lewinson Rafael Lozano Hemmer // Larry Shaw // Alex Rivera // La place // Natalie Bookchin // Osfavelados Fiambrera(españa)/CalArts // Ford Proco // Eddo Stern // Gloria Marti // Arturo Fuentes -- _______________________________________________ Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup From coolzanny at hotmail.com Sun Jun 2 12:31:55 2002 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Sun, 02 Jun 2002 12:31:55 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Response to Rehan - Where the fuck does the money go? Message-ID: Dear Rehan, It was interesting to read your mail about NRI's pouring money for 'purifying Hinduism' and the money going to VHP. Just discovered yesterday that ministers in Delhi offer individuals a crore to start 'on-paper NGOs'. Ten percent of that money must go to the minister. If the individual is taken in by the offer, the rest of his/her life is a living hell. Howzzat??? Zainab _________________________________________________________________ Join the world�s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Sun Jun 2 19:37:06 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 15:07:06 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Film-making Workshop for Physically Challenged Children held at SRFTI, KOLKATA Message-ID: <20020602140706.49359.qmail@web20303.mail.yahoo.com> The following newsreport appeared in the Asian Age's Kolkata Age Page of March 21, 2002. It talks about SRFTI,KOLKATA being the first film institute in India to organise a workshop in film-making for the physically challenged children. SPOTLIGHT WORKSHOP FOR THE PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED By Our Correspondent Kolkata, March 20 The Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute will organise a workshop on film-making for the physically challenged children said the institute’s director Jatin Sarkar. Mr Sarkar said SRFTI this is the first such workshop organised in the city and this will give the children an opportunity to explore their potentials. The SRFTI director said the three-day workshop, to be held at the institute campus from March 21. An eight-member team from the institute will conduct the workshop. They will be assisted by several city-based NGOs along with the Children’s Film Society of India. Though the faculty is not trained to work with such children, it is ready to take up the challenge, faculty member Sunetra Ghatak said. “This is challenging and will be a learning experience,” she said. Mr Sarkar said the workshop aims at developing creative potential of the participants. “We are trying to sow seeds of a new line of action for these children,” he said. He also said most people fail to understand the aptitude of these children as they look at the drawbacks and not the creativity. He said such workshops will be conducted at regular intervals. “May be one of them will end up being an exponent of Indian cinema,” he added. ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Sun Jun 2 19:47:38 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 15:17:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] SRFTI unleashes New Talent Message-ID: <20020602141738.96218.qmail@web20301.mail.yahoo.com> The following news report appeared in the Movies page of the ASIAN AGE dated 14th October, 2001 SRFTI UNLEASHES NEW TALENT Ram Kamal Mukherjee The first-ever diploma film festival organised by the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) was instrumental in bringing to the fore new talents. For the not discerning, RituBarna Chudgar, Anjalika Sharma or Chandril Bhattacharya are just faceless names. The first-ever diploma film festival organised by the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) was instrumental in bringing to the fore new talents. For the not discerning, RituBarna Chudgar, Anjalika Sharma or Chandril Bhattacharya are just faceless names. “The institute has been a product of dreams and much aspiration. It is with pride that we present our best to the larger world,” stated founder chairman and director, Buddhadeb Dasgupta. And true, from the inaugural Bhor by RituBarna Chudgar to Chandril Bhattacharya’s “Y2K,” film critics and enthusiasts were left delighted. Following the success of the film festival, SRFTI plans to launch the Institute Journal, a publication by students under the able guidance of veteran film critic Sunetra Ghatak. The institute is also contemplating the possibility of an International Student’s Film Festival in Kolkata, early next year. “Our aim is to popularise SRFTI and earn revenue,” informed Biren Das Sharma, a faculty member. After running into rough weather following its inauguration in 1996, due to lack of infrastructure and technical equipment, SRFTI has finally emerged as “the best sound recording and editing school in the country.” The institute was established to bring forth the latent talent of the cine-buffs from all over the country, who dreams to “roll” and “cut” the film. Director Gautam Ghosh said, “The new generation of filmmakers should be encouraged to activate their ideas.” The veteran cinematographer Subrata Mitra was felicitated by SRFTI. With freshers like RituBarna, Chandril, Manu Gautam, Vipin Vijay and Anjalika Sharma it seems that the magic on celluloid with continue. ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From pankaj at sarai.net Mon Jun 3 03:02:19 2002 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 23:32:19 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Washinton post's review of OpenOffice In-Reply-To: <03b301c20901$205565c0$97de3dca@geert>; from geert@desk.nl on Sat, Jun 01, 2002 at 10:12:21AM +1000 References: <20020530145716.A7937@sarai.net> <03b301c20901$205565c0$97de3dca@geert> Message-ID: <20020602233218.A5386@sarai.net> On Sat, Jun 01, 2002 at 10:12:21AM +1000, geert lovink wrote: > > Mozilla also reached 1.0 just a few days ago > > Not quite yet, sorry Pankaj, you are a bit early. Mozilla 1.0 might be > released in a few weeks. Ya! in my exitement i mistook release candidate to version 1 Grr ... the guys are partying before they reach release 1. supreet and i are planning to throw a mozilla party too.. ;) http://www.schnitzer.at/mozparty/index.html?all=true#69 let it be on june 12 too.. > > Mozilla 1.0 RC3 Released > In response to the feedback from RC2, we have released Mozilla 1.0 Release > Candidate 3, our last planned candidate before we release Mozilla 1.0. Try > it out and let us know if you find any really serious problems. Read the > Release Notes for more details. > Mozilla 1.0 Party > Join us in celebrating the upcoming release of Mozilla 1.0 at a party we're > throwing at 8pm Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco. > Free source, free admission, cash bar. 21+, ID required (no matter how old > you look). If you can't make it, plan a satellite party in your own area. > -- Pankaj(Im a tru gnu boo boo) Kaushal From vipinvijay at yahoo.com Mon Jun 3 11:24:26 2002 From: vipinvijay at yahoo.com (vipin vijay) Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2002 22:54:26 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] All lies in 24 frames per second at SRFTI,Kolkata. In-Reply-To: <200206030451.GAA11281@mail.waag.org> Message-ID: <20020603055426.78349.qmail@web10504.mail.yahoo.com> dear friends, At the root of all "external authority" are individuals seeking to avoid integrated thinking in their livelihoods. This is after reading the news on SRFTI doing a workshop for physically handicap children. Both the person�s quoted out here to elevate the potentials of filmmaking has nothing to do with films. I am a graduate of SRFTI. They have been planning all �unkempt� activities in the premises to gather attention at the midst of controversy surrounding mass corruption and illegal activities. The two public petitions filed by eminent personalities are ample proof. Budhadeb Dasgupta took away all the wealth of the institute. We spat on him and drove him away like the chewed stump of a fag. The other man (the left�s artist of Kolkata) also did the same. He gave away the best equipments of the country to his friends and relatives. He himself was doing a postproduction work of his film disturbing the curriculum of the students. Another women filmmaker famous for her first film, that beautiful damsel also did the same. Ha!!!! They represent the countries �Art� filmmakers. They all are stinking. Why don�t somebody tell them to stop making films. I think that�s good in a way now for SRFTI to project themselves. The pursuer of knowledge should know his target. I specifically say knowledge, and not information. (Knowledge will include discrimination as well) he knows that there is no creation and for that reason there is no dissolution. So he fears.! A matured outlook in the choice of the means of knowledge, which connects the knower, and the knowledge. The real knowledge emerges out when the knower and the knowledge becomes one with the disappearance of the means of knowledge. Now this is not to say that I'm even very good at being subversive. I dare say that most people who try to be subversive end up succeeding much better than I do, by describing the construction of pipe bombs or advocating socialism, pointing out giant security holes in various widely-used programs, releasing whole professional operating system for free, or sowing discontent among the masses. Relatively speaking, I'm a nobody in the world of subversives. But that's okay. But the real question that a wise person would ask is this: why the subversion? Subversion is, by my definition, a resistance to the status quo. It is the "check" in "checks and balances," the "correction" in the market, and the "invisible hand" (to borrow from Adam Smith) in society. I think my reasoning for why I believe subversion to be a good and moral activity is best described by the Hegelian world view, which advocates having an idea (a thesis) clash with an opposing idea (the antithesis) to produce a compromise that is closer to the truth (synthesis). If the status quo is considered to be the thesis, then subversives represent an antithesis and must be seriously considered in their own right Please don�t think myself to be arrogant because brother, I have learnt it the hard way. Not really interested to be hooked to the "subtitles" of Robert Bresson, Andr� Tarkovsky and highly saleable brahmanical filmmakers like late G. Arvindan. Also, would you agree that upsurges of class struggle, which don't have a widespread libertarian socialist political consciousness will always run the risk of being hijacked by the Left and the rest of the leadership brigade? Someone should also bomb SRFTI. I am looking for individuated form of expressions, which is far from �institutionalized� form of culture. Can you believe these are the same assholes that send my diploma film to Oberhausen for the competition with out subtitling? And they find it quite all right. Its fantastic to close down state sponsored schools under the regime of these idiots. Its was a joke of the day to read the article in the sarai news bulletin. With regards, Vipin Vijay. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020602/ecc153c5/attachment.html From menso at r4k.net Mon Jun 3 13:24:12 2002 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 09:54:12 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Anti-snooping operating system close to launch in the UK In-Reply-To: <200205300410.GAA05335@mail.waag.org> References: <20020529111941.A30288@sarai.net> <200205300410.GAA05335@mail.waag.org> Message-ID: <20020603075411.GD30848@r4k.net> On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 10:54:18AM -0400, Supreet Sethi wrote: > freenet architecture allows for flow of content towards maximum consumption > area so chances are pretty high that indian content would'nt move far from > nodes on indian subcontinent unless people in US start hoarding "indian" > content available on freenet. That could skew the content flow to some extend > > I do'nt see any solution to this problem at this point of time There have been several "onion-routing" projects, from 'free' ones (www.onion-router.net) to paid ones (www.zeroknowledge.com). The problem with this is that it requires quite some investments in infrastructure & traffic costs, etc. People tend to give up privacy quite easily if they have to pay for it :) Freenet most likely does some form of onion routing as well. Menso -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * LetoAms hates clients who say "it worked before" when it clearly never worked just tell them that they're lying hounds.... ... and charge double -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From announcements-request at sarai.net Mon Jun 3 10:31:43 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 07:01:43 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #59 - 2 msgs Message-ID: <200206030501.HAA11344@mail.waag.org> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. FW: New cities/New media (Amanda McDonald Crowley) 2. FW: :CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture READER (Amanda McDonald Crowley) --__--__-- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 12:09:07 +0930 From: Amanda McDonald Crowley To: Subject: [Announcements] FW: New cities/New media ------ Forwarded Message To: fibreculture-announce at lists.myspinach.org Subject: ::fc-announce:: New cities/New media New Cities/ New Media Call for Papers Deadline: 2002-07-30 By way of photography, cinema, television and other visual media, urban space is communicated and made meaningful�be it from the effect of photography and cinema on the Modernist City to the impact of new technology on contemporary urban planning. Accordingly, with each paradigm shift in the aesthetics and form of mass media, our conceptualization of cities become transformed and altered. New Cities/New Media seeks to explore the ways in which urban landscapes have transformed new media production and how new media has played a role in transforming our urban landscapes�both historically as well as in current production. The conference is intended to bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners to address the inter-play between media, the production of cities and our collective urban experiences. The conference will take place on the University of Southern California campus the weekend of November 15-17, 2002. Please send a 500-1000 word abstract that addresses any aspect of the relationship between new cities and new media to the below address or e-mail address by July 30, 2002. Also include a one page curriculum vitae or short biography. Notification for acceptance by September 1, 2002. New Cities/New Media Conference c/o Amy Murphy, Assistant Professor University of Southern California School of Architecture Watt Hall, Room 203 Los Angeles, CA 90089 Email: almurphy at usc.edu ******************************** This is an open list. It is moderated as to its general decorum but individual messages are posted without moderation. Please ensure that your message is relevant, factually correct, and concise. Do not post attachments. The list owner is Dr John Macarthur at the University of Queensland. j.macarthur at mailbox.uq.edu.au ********************************* _______________________________________________ ::fibreculture::announcements:: To subscribe, please visit http://lists.myspinach.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fibreculture-announce and enter your e-mail address. to unsubscribe from ::fc-announce::, send an email to: fibreculture-announce-unsubscribe at lists.myspinach.org http://www.fibreculture.org ------ End of Forwarded Message -- Amanda McDonald Crowley tel: +61 (0)419 829 313 e: amc at autonomous.org / amc at va.com.au --__--__-- Message: 2 Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 13:22:18 +0930 From: Amanda McDonald Crowley To: Subject: [Announcements] FW: :CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture READER > This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand this format, some or all of this message may not be legible. --B_3105955338_1679912 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable ------ Forwarded Message From: "gavin sullivan" Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 01:31:09 +0000 To: fibreculture at lists.myspinach.org Subject: ::fibreculture:: CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture READER PLEASE DISTRIBUTE =20 call for contributors : call for contributors : call for contributors : =20 The CITY : STATE Network and Surveillance Unit of the UTS Community Law & Legal Research Centre are compiling a reader of critical materials on/aroun= d surveillance to coincide with the upcoming conference: =20 CITY STATE : flow / capture / control / rupture - a critical forum on surveillance and social control - July 20 2002 : Horti Hall, Melbourne =20 The CITY STATE reader is an attempt to go beyond the continual silence of governments, industry and conservative privacy organisations by mapping the different ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways that we live, and tracing critical paths of understanding and response= . =20 The only real restriction on contributions at this stage is that they be: =A7 brief (500 - 2000w) =A7 sent to us by 10th June 2002 =A7 critical - i.e., providing new (beyond privacy) insights into how surveillance works/is used in informatic environments. =20 Academic/Artistic/Activistic creations and reflections that are surveillanc= e related are all welcome. =20 For more info about the CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture conferenc= e and reader - or to send contributions - write to gavin at law.uts.edu.au or louiseb at law.uts.edu.au or see http://citystate.culture2.org [to be updated soon]=20 =20 ------ End of Forwarded Message -- =20 Amanda McDonald Crowley tel: +61 (0)419 829 313 e: amc at autonomous.org / amc at va.com.au --B_3105955338_1679912 Content-type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable FW: :CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture READER

------ Forwarded Message
From: "gavin sullivan" <oscillator_one at hotmail.com><= BR> Date: Mon, 03 Jun 2002 01:31:09 +0000
To: fibreculture at lists.myspinach.org
Subject: ::fibreculture:: CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture = READER

PLEASE DISTRIBUTE
 
call for contributors : call for contributors : call for contributors : &nb= sp;
 
The CITY : STATE  Network and Surveillance Unit of the UTS Community L= aw & Legal Research Centre are compiling a reader of critical materials = on/around surveillance to coincide with the upcoming conference:
 
CITY STATE : flow / capture / control / rupture
- a critical forum on surveillance and social control -
July 20 2002 : Horti Hall, Melbourne
 
The CITY STATE reader is an attempt to go beyond the continual silence of g= overnments, industry and conservative privacy organisations by mapping the d= ifferent ways surveillance is reconfiguring social space, power and the ways= that we live, and tracing critical paths of understanding and response.
 
The only real restriction on contributions at this stage is that they be: § brief (500 - 2000w)
§ sent to us by 10th June 2002
§ critical - i.e., providing new (beyond privacy) insights into how su= rveillance works/is used in informatic environments.
 
Academic/Artistic/Activistic creations and reflections that are surveillanc= e related are all welcome.
 
For more info about the CITY STATE : flow/capture/control/rupture conferenc= e and reader - or to send contributions - write to = gavin at law.uts.edu.au or louiseb at law.uts.= edu.au or see http://citystate.culture2.= org [to be updated soon]

 

------ End of Forwarded Message

--  
Amanda McDonald Crowley
tel: +61 (0)419 829 313
e:  amc at autonomous.org  /  amc at va.com.au
 --B_3105955338_1679912-- --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From coolzanny at hotmail.com Tue Jun 4 10:16:41 2002 From: coolzanny at hotmail.com (Zainab Bawa) Date: Tue, 04 Jun 2002 10:16:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Response to Rehan - Where the fuck does the money go? Message-ID: Dear Ravi, Thanks for the info. I got ot know of the 'on-paper NGOs' particularly in regard to Kashmir. Nowadays, money is being pumped crazily into Kashmir. CAPART was apparently conducting a research on NGOs which exist in reality because they wanted to promote honest NGOs in Kashmir. They discovered that at least about 6000 NGOs only existed on paper. Once people get caught in the trap of creating 'on-paper NGOs' in Kashmir, it seems that life can then become a living hell. All this for development. Let's see what's more to come. Zainab _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. From prajaf at vsnl.com Tue Jun 4 14:26:39 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 14:26:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Feminists and Porn References: <20020604051316.4E5C9114974@webmail.vsnl.com> Message-ID: <000f01c20ba8$f1eabfa0$5601c5cb@vsnl.net.in> Off list conversation between Shohini and me on pornography, free-speech and feminism! Would love to have the viewpoints of others on the sarai list. -yazad Shohini: To critique and ask for counter-speech is not to ask for censorship. This is the critical difference between the libertarian position and the anti-censorship feminist one. Yazad: I'm not sure if I got this right. Are you saying that the libertarian position is pro-censorship and the feminist position is anti-censorship? Shohini: No. I am not saying that. The feminist position fights for free speech while maintaining a critique of discriminatory speech. The feminist project does not end with just saying that all speech has a right to exist. Yazad: I'm not sure that there is a coherent "feminist" position. I recollect feminist positions calling for a ban on pornography. That to me is against free speech. What is your view on this? We're having this discussion off-list. Would you like to put it back on the sarai list? Shohini: Feminists Against Censorship began their movement against Feminists who wanted to ban pornography. This is probably the most contested issue among feminists. Since feminists are not a monolithic block they have different positions which I think is desirable. I can suggest many readings but you will have to wait till I get my email at home working as I have moved house. I am not sure this is getting onto the Readers List. I'd be grateful if you could post it. Yazad: There is a very interesting feminist-libertarian site : www.ifeminists.com run by Wendy McElroy. Would love to read more about Feminists Against Censorship -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020604/023d5655/attachment.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Tue Jun 4 20:38:36 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:08:36 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Tragic Tale of Turtles in Agartala Markets (Pradip Mazumder)(Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) Message-ID: <20020604150836.48570.qmail@web20309.mail.yahoo.com> Tragic tale of turtles in Agartala markets By Pradip Mazumder (Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Tue Jun 4 20:43:10 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:13:10 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Generals as Governors(Sanjib Baruah) Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com Message-ID: <20020604151310.3693.qmail@web20305.mail.yahoo.com> (The following article has been downloaded from www.tripurainfo.com) GENERALS AS GOVERNORS THE PARALLEL POLITICAL SYSTEMS OF NORTHEAST INDIA By Sanjib Baruah (Sanjib Baruah teaches political science in Bard College , New York and is author of the famous book -- India against itself ) In the militancy-affected Indian Northeast, New Delhi's containment policy of the last four decades has produced a peculiar equilibrium, one in which democracy and authoritarian governance coexist with disturbing ease. The paternalistic carrot-and-stick approach routine use of military force with development money spread about in the backward region assumes an imperious "foreknowledge of the destiny" of the Northeast. Indian policy must respond with constitutional reforms that respond to the region's history which animates the insurgencies. It must conduct a democratic dialogue involving the peoples of the Northeast and not rely on secret negotiations between bureaucrats and insurgents. But then will that be allowed by a system that appoints generals as governors? "Isn't there a brigadier in Shillong?" This was how Sardar Vallabbhai Patel, India's deputy prime minister responded in 1949 to reports that the "native state" of Manipur might be reluctant to merge fully with the Indian Union. In September of that year, the governor of Assam, Sri Prakasa, accompanied by his adviser for Tribal Areas, Nari Rustomji, flew to Bombay to apprise Patel of the situation. The fate of Manipur and other indirectly ruled "native states" presented a significant constitutional problem when British rule of India ended in 1947. Indeed, the decision of the Kashmiri Maharaja to accede to India was the beginning of the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan. Patel and other senior Indian officials might perhaps have pondered more on the potential diffi-culties that could arise from decisions by major `native states like Kashmir and Hyderabad on the postcolonial dispensation in the Subcontinent. But the thought that tiny and remote Manipur on India's border with Burma, might hesitate about fully joining India had probably never crossed their minds. The meeting of Sri Prakasa, Rustomji and Patel was brief. As Rustomji recalls in his memoir, Enchanted Frontier, apart from asking whether there was a brigadier stationed in the region, Patel said little else. It was clear from his voice what he meant, wrote Rustomji, and the conversation did not go any further. Within days the Maharaja of Manipur, on a visit to Shillong, found himself virtually imprisoned in his residence. The house was surrounded by soldiers and under the pressure of considerable misinformation and intimidation, the Maharaja isolated from his advisers, council of ministers and Manipuri public opinion was made to sign an agreement fully merging his state with India. When the ceremony to mark the transfer of power and the end of this ancient kingdom took place in Imphal on 15 October 1949, a battalion of the Indian army was in place to guard against possible trouble. The circumstances attending Manipur's merger with India haunts the politics of the state to this day. A number of insurgent groups regard the merger as illegal and unconstitutional, and many among the Manipuri intelligentsia are bitter about the way it was effected. While Manipur today has an elected chief minister and an elected state legislature like other states in the Indian Union there is also a de facto parallel structure of governance directly controlled from Delhi that manages counter-insurgency operations. Visitors to Manipur cannot but notice the strong military presence. Even historic monuments such as the Kangla Fort of the old Manipuri kings, and parts of the complex in Moirang that commemorates the rebel Indian National Army, are occupied by Indian security forces. It is not hard to see why there is such a massive security presence in the state. Manipur, today, has numerous insurgent groups with ethnically-based support among Meities, Nagas and Kukis. In recent years, smaller ethnic groups such as Paites, Vaipheis and Hmars too have formed their own armed organi-sations. The official count of lives annually lost in insurgency-related incidents in Manipur in recent years is in the hundreds. And somewhat independent of the activities of these insurgent organisations is the ethnic conflict between Nagas and Kukis and, more recently, between Kukis and Paites. Many of these conflicts appear intractable and some of them are attributable to the profound social transformation that these societies are undergoing. Yet unless one believes that a coercive state is a necessary instrument to manage change, it is hard to avoid the question: were the symbols and practices of the traditional Manipuri state despite the significant erosion of its authority and power under British colonial rule better-equipped to achieve social cohesion? Was Patels readiness to use forcejust as the rest of India was setting off on a path of democratic rights and liberties an early acknowledgement that Indian democracy in the Northeast would necessarily have an authoritarian accent? Manipur is not unique. Except for Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, five of the seven states of Northeast India today Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripurahave insurgent movements of varying levels of activity and intensity. Some of them, such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), Nagalands National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN), now divided into two factions, and the Manipur People's Liberation Front (MPLF), which consists of the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the People's Revolutionary Party of Kanglaipak (PREPAK), have separatist agendas. Other ethnically based groups are typically dressed up as national fronts defending this or that minority ethnic group. As a response to those insurgencies and to Pakis-tan's Inter Services Intelligence's (ISI) inclination to fish in these troubled waters, there are many more brigadiers in Northeast India today than Patel could have imagined. Military formations much larger than brigades corps headed by lieutenant generals and divisions headed by major generals are now stationed in this part of the country. In Vairengte, a Mizoram vilge, there is even a Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School for training officers to fight the militants. And the Indian Army is only one of the security forces deployed in the region. Other paramilitary units controlled by the central government, such as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), the Border Security Force (BSF) the Assam Rifles, various intelligence bureaus and the police forces of each state, are also involved in counter-insurgency operations. And overseeing these operations is a parallel political structure that works outside the rules and norms that govern India's democratic political institutions. Political violence murders, bombings, kidnap-pings, extortion by militants, and killing of militants by security forces in actual or staged encounters has become a routine part of news from the Northeast. True, there is also news of elections, cease-fires and talks or prospects of talks with insurgents. But the two kinds of news and images co-exist with disturbing ease. No one finds the image of democratic elections being conducted under massive military presence ano-malous. Nor does anyone expect talks with insurgents to bring about sustained peace. Indeed in some ways, insurgencies themselves have become incorporated into the democratic political process. Good political reporters of the Northeast know the precise role that insurgent factions play in elections or the ties that these factions have with particular mainstream politicians. For politicians, the use of the army to fight insurgencies has now become something of a habit. For instance, in the spring of 2000, after attacks on Bengalis by tribal militants in Tripura, political parties belonging to the states Left Front government observed a 12-hour bandh to pressurise the central government to send in the army to deal with the situation. Chief Minister Manik Sarkar complained that even though 27 police station areas in the state had been declared disturbed, the Indian army had not yet arrived. One would hardly guess from such statements that the law that these democratic politicians were relying on the law that permits army deployment in disturbed areas is a law that contravenes all coeivable human rights standards. According to the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), in an area that is proclaimed as disturbed, an officer of the armed forces has powers to: (a) fire upon or use other kinds of force even if it causes death; (b) to arrest without a warrant and with the use of necessary force anyone who has committed certain offences or is suspected of having done so; and (c) to enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests. Army officers have legal immunity for their actions. There can be no prosecution, suit or any other legal proceeding against anyone acting under that law. Nor is the governments judgment on why an area is found to be disturbed subject to judicial review. As Ravi Nair of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre in New Delhi has pointed out, the AFSPA violates the Indian Constitutions right to life, the right against arbitrary arrest and detention, the rules of the Indian Criminal Procedure Code relating to arrests, searches and seizures, and almost all relevant international human rights principles. There was a time when reports of human rights violations in the Northeast were taken seriously. But most Indians now regard human rights organisations as being at best naïve, or at worst, sympathisers of insurgents masquerading under the flag of human rights. The violation of human rights in the Northeast is seen as the necessary cost of keeping the nation safe from its enemies inside and outside. Thus in 1991, when the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked the Attorney General of India to explain the constitutionality of the AFSPA in terms of Indian law and to justify it in terms of international human rights law, he defended it on the sole ground that it was necessary in order to prevent the secession of the northeastern states. The Indian government, he argued, had a duty to protect the states from internal disturbances and that there was no duty under international law to allow secession. State within a state In the insurgency-hardened Northeast, democratic India has developed a defacto political system, somewhat autonomous of the formal demo-cratically-elected governmental structure. This parallel system is an intricate, multi-tiered reticulate, with crucial decision-making, facilitating and operational nodes that span the region and connects New Delhi with the theatre of action. The apex decision-making node is the Home Ministry in New Delhi housed in North Block on Raisina Hill. The operational node which implements the decisions consists of the Indian Army, and other military, police and intelligence units controlled by the central and state govern-ments, and involves complex coordination. This apparatus also involves the limited participation of the political functionaries of insurgency-affected states. Elected state governments, under India's weak federal structure, can always be constitutionally dismissed in certain situations of instability. But New Delhi has generally preferred to have them in place while conducting counter-insurgency operations. Since the insurgencies have some popular sympathy albeit not stable or stubborn the perception that the operations have the tacit support of elected state governments is useful for their legitimacy. Consequently, the command structure may include some state-level politicians and senior civil servants. This is perceived to be the weakest link in the chain because of the fear that the presence of these locals might potentially subvert the counter-insurgency operations. Consider the following news reports: 1. In December 2000, the central government asked the Manipur government to investigate links between at least five ministers and insurgent groups. The Home Ministry forwarded a report to the state authorities that included evidence of such a nexus between the ministers and insurgents. Manipur's caretaker chief minister Radhabinod Koijam, just before the fall of his government last month, dropped six ministers from his cabinet. Koijam was in the middle of a political battle for survival, and there were other reasons for their removal. But he defended his action saying that their names appeared in the Home Ministry's list of tainted politicians. 2. In January 2001, the Union Home Ministry proposed the setting up of a judicial enquiry commission to probe into the allegations and counter-allegations of the insurgent-politician nexus in the northeastern states. 3. In the May 2001 elections just concluded, former chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta repeatedly accused the Congress party of having a nexus with ULFA. The Congress party dismissed the charge as election propaganda and claimed that its victory proved that the electorate did not believe the accusation. In the elections of 1996, the roles were reversed: the Congress had made similar charges against Mahantas party, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP). There are, of course, many reasons why demo-cratically-elected politicians of a region, where insurgent groups and mainstream political parties may share the same social, political, and cultural space, would sometimes know and have ties with each other. Pervasive corruption also leads politicians to cultivate ties with insurgent groups. They, like others with a reputation for making illegal money, consider it prudent to try to keep the insurgent groups happy by sharing parts of their illicit income with them. Rather than a hard boundary separating insurgents and mainstream politicians, in these circumstances, a nexus between some of them becomes inevitable, despite the fact that such ties may cost these politicians in terms of their credibility as far as New Delhi is concerned. A former home minister of Nagaland, Dalle Namo, who had been part of the Naga underground, once movingly acknowledged his debt to the pioneers of the movement for Naga independence. He told journalist Nirmal Nibedon that he is conscious of the fact that he lives in this big bungalow because men like Phizo and Imkongmeren and many others once lived in caves. All these chandeliers and lights [are there] because for them the stars were their only light; [I have ] these expensive wall-to-wall carpets because they walked on moss and grass. Nibedon recalls this conversation in a foreword to Namos autobiography, The Prisoner from Nagaland. Of course, such sentiments connecting insurgents with mainstream politicians are far from universal. It is unlikely, for instance, that Prafulla Kumar Mahanta of Assam or Nagalands pre-sent Chief Minister, S.C. Jamir, whom militants have tried to kill more than once, would share similar ideali-sed views about leaders of the Assamese or the Naga underground. However, even these leaders have not always been free of ties with militants. The Khaplang-led faction of the National Socia-list Council of Nagalim, for instance, is reputed to enjoy the patronage of Jamir. This is the paradox of counter-insurgency. On the one hand, it must draw on the legitimacy of the elected establishment. On the other, it must protect itself from this establishments suscepti-bilities. Namos account and the repeated charges of a link between north-eastern politicians and insurgents underscore why India's security establishment would want a parallel structure of governance that is as autonomous as possible from the democratic politics of the state in question. For instance, in the case of the Indian government's allegation of a nexus between the five Manipuri politicians and insurgents, if the Home Ministry had provided evidence of such a nexus to the authorities in Manipur, it is unlikely, that this report would go to the elected members of the state govern-ment some of whom were themselves the object of suspicion. The most likely person to have received that report from New Delhi, one can reasonably speculate, was the Governor of Manipur. Bending the rules of constitutional democracy, and building and maintaining a parallel structure however, is not always easy. Not all elected state governments have been willing to give up their constitutional prerogatives. For instance, in Assam, thanks to the consent of former chief minister Mahanta, counter-insurgency operations since 1997 has been conducted by a Unified Command under which all forces including the state police come under the operational command of the Army. Tarun Gogoi, in one of his first statements as Assam's chief minister, following the Congress election victory this May, said that he would like to see the Assam police play more of a role in the Unified Command because of its superior knowledge of local conditions. It is unlikely that Gogoi will seek to end the use of Uniform Command structure in Assam. On the other hand, elected politicians in Manipur have so far resisted pressures from the Indian Home Ministry and the Indian Army to have a Unified Command structure. Former chief minister of Manipur, W. Nipamacha, for instance, had maintained that since legally speaking, the army was deployed in the state only to assist the civil administration, it should remain under the command of the state government. Such potential conflicts between the compulsions of the civil dispensation and the concerns of the security establishment make the governors of these states crucial nodes in the counter-insurgency network. The management of this difficult equation, in fact, confers on the governor's office a role that far exceeds the more ceremonial functions it is constitutionally restricted to elsewhere and in normal circumstances. The career profiles of the incumbents in the Northeast provide an index of the importance of the gubernatorial office to the parallel political system. All the seven governors of the northeastern states today have either occupied high and sensitive positions in India's security establishment or have had close ties to it. Arunachal Pradesh: Arvind Dave, former chief, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) Assam: Lieutenant General (retired) S.K. Sinha Manipur: Ved Prakash Marwah, retired Indian Police Service officer Meghalaya: M.M. Jacob, former central minister and deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha Mizoram: A.R. Kohli, former businessman with political ties Nagaland: O.P. Sharma, retired Indian Police Service Officer Tripura: Lieutenant General (retired) K.M. Seth Two are retired military men, two are retired police officers, and one is the former head of India's espionage agency, RAW, engaged in clandestine operations abroad and at home. Of the two without any ostensible ties with the security establishment, M. M. Jacob, governor of Meghalaya, was once Minister of State for Home Affairs in New Delhi; and A.R. Kohli, recently appointed governor of relatively peaceful Mizoram, who had a career in business, has strong ties with the RSS, suggesting proximity to Home Minister L.K. Advani. The fact that all the appointees have had fairly intimate connections with the security establishment cannot be mere coincidence. As appointees of the central government and as facilitating agents in the counter-insur-gency regime, such antecedents serve very practical ends, parti-cularly in ensuring that the demands of security override the rules of democracy in the event of a conflict between the two. Governor as judge Instances of gubernatorial interventions point to the role they play in insulating counter-insurgency operations from democratic processes and scrutiny. Governors often act in ways that not only stretch constitutional propriety but also sacrifice democratic procedures at that altar of security expediencies. A case of what can be called counter-insurgent constitutionalism took place in Assam in 1998 when the Governor, Lt. Gen Sinha, intervened to stop the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from prosecuting then chief minister Mahanta on a serious corruption charge. Mahanta's acquiescence in the Unified Command structure was clearly important to the security establishment. At the same time, the legal pursuit of a credible corruption charge against an elected chief minister could have significantly raised the legitimacy of India's democratic governmental institutions in the public eye. There was a choice between two sets of values: the perceived political requirements of counter-insurgency versus an opportunity to raise the public esteem of India's democratic institutions in a region where those institutions lack legitimacy. The corruption charge against Mahanta went back to what is commonly referred to as the Letters of Credit scam, involving at least INR 200 crores between 1986 and 1993. Mahanta was not chief minister at that time. Fake letters of credit were issued by the states animal husbandry and veterinary departments to draw money from the treasury, and a number of politicians of both the then ruling Congress and the opposition AGP, were implicated. It was also suspected that a part of the money found its way to the ULFA. The CBI investigated a number of politicians. The case against Mahanta was that the kingpin of the scam, Rajendra Prasad Borah, had paid him INR 40 lakhs during the 1991 elections, and that Mahanta's air travels during the campaign had been financed by Borah. According to the CBI, in that election, Borah had distributed house-building material to purchase votes in Mahanta's electoral constituency. Bank drafts distributed by Mahanta, in his electoral district, according to the CBI, were paid for by Borah. For a governor a former military general to make a legal judgment on whether a chief minister should be prosecuted pushes the limits of constitutional propriety. To be sure, this power of Indian governors is not limited to the Northeast and as the Delhi-based magazine India Today pointed out in an editorial, there is something profoundly undemocratic about a mechanism which requires the governors permission to even begin legal proceeding against a chief minister seen as corrupt. In the Northeast, given parallel power structure in place, the potential for abuse of that power or, perhaps its use as a means of securing support for the security regime from a corrupt chief minister is enormous. The governor's reasons for disallowing the CBIs prosecution of Mahanta, involved a number of legal rationalisations. Sinha pointed to the lack of evidence, and questioned the reliability of the witnesses who formed the basis of the CBI's case. The CBI, according to the governor, had not established Mahanta's criminal culpability. The governor rejected the charge that Mahanta had entered into a criminal conspiracy with Borah to defraud the state claiming that no evidence of such conspiracy has been provided. Obviously, governors enjoy extraordinary powers to influence chief ministers in the interests of the parallel regime. In this particular case, it is difficult to avoid speculating on a very obvious connection. In Assam since 1997, the Unified Command structure has been possible because of the consent given by Mahanta. That was a year before the governor was called upon to make this crucial judgment in the corruption case. Was there a quid pro quo in the governor's decision to protect Mahanta from legal prosecution so as to ensure his continued support for the Unified Command structure? Did the perceived needs of counter-insurgency trump the value of achieving greater transparency in government? More importantly, what has this entire edifice and its strategies achieved by way of ending insurgency and restoring peace? Why is peace so elusive? This counter-insurgency apparatus and its modus operandi are geared fundamentally, and more or less exclusively, to containment. So long as insurgencies are only contained, and no sustainable peace processes are in place, democracy in the Northeast is likely to continue to co-exist with the use of authoritarian modes of governance. With the significant exception of the Mizo movement, most insurgencies in the Northeast have been transformed, or are currently transforming, into long-term, low-intensity conflicts. The perceived need for counter-insurgency operations never seems to go away. Even in Mizoram, at least if one goes by military presence in that state, the end of the insurgency has not meant that the state within the state has been dismantled. There are three reasons why most northeastern insurgencies turn into protracted conflicts of attrition: (a) the goal of counter-insurgency is limited to creating conditions under which particular insurgent groups or factions surrender weapons, come to the negotiation table on the governments terms and make compromises in exchange for personal gain; (b) counter-insurgency operations do not dramatically change the conditions on the ground that breed and sustain the insurgent political culture and lifestyle; and (c) the political initiative that accompany and supplement counter-insurgency operations try to utilise former militants in the war against insurgents, thus creating a climate of mistrust and a cycle of violence and counter-violence between anti-government and pro-government insurgents. The need for a powerful security presence can hardly disappear under these conditions. Assam's growing violencewhich includes a large number of secret killings by death squads exemplifies the results of a counter-insurgency strategy which in fact transformed an insurgency into a wider and long drawn-out conflict. The bloody elections of May 2001 in which scores of people lost their lives is at odds with Lt. Gen Sinha's euphoric claim of the ballot having won against the bullet . The Mizoram exception, of course, is important. In 1986, Laldenga, the leader of the Mizo National Front, signed an accord with prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, and this remains the only instance of an accord successfully bringing about an end to insurgency in northeast India. Laldenga became the chief minister of Mizoram and when he lost elections two years later, there was no call for a return to insurgency. Among the factors that accounted for the successful end of the Mizo insurgency were the following: the undisputed leadership of the insurgency in the hands of a single individual who was willing to compromise and who could deliver his part of the deal; the feasibility of offering Laldenga the chief ministership of Mizoram in exchange for ending the insurgency; the existence of large and organised church-related civil society institutions that were actively involved in creating and supporting the consensus for peace; and a political climate in New Delhi during the Rajiv Gandhi years that was relatively open to making significant political compromises with insurgents. But to date, the Mizo case has been the only exception, and insurgency refuses to die down despite the sophistication and resources of the counter-insurgency establishment and the leeway given it to use the governor as political administrator. In seeking to understand why peace continues to elude Northeast India, it is important to study how insurgencies are able to sustain themselves in the face of such enormous military action. It is important to keep in mind the fact that while the security establishment runs parallel administrations that circumscribe civil administrations politically, insurgent movements run similar parallel fiscal administrations at the ground level through illegal tax collection and extortion. One perspective on the longevity of armed civil conflicts focuses attention not so much on the grievances that are articulated by insurgent groups but to the ability of these groups to finance their activities. For example, economist Paul Collier in an article, in a recent volume, Managing Global Chaos, looking at the global patterns of armed civil conflicts, concluded that the most significant factor of civil conflicts is the ability of rebel organisations to be financially viable. He also found a strong correlation with a specific set of economic conditions such as a regions dependence on exports of primary commodity and low national income. It is not that poverty breeds armed civil conflicts, Collier surmises, but that certain economic conditions are conducive to the mobilisation of revenue by armed insurgent groups. Primary commodities are highly lootable, primary production centres located in conflict-zones are easily accessible, and production cannot be moved elsewhere. Unlike a manufacturing unit, which is not worth much once production ceases, owners and managers of such centres continue to be dependent on existing production sites, making them vulnerable to extortion. Low national income, Collier argues, is co-related with armed civil conflicts not because the objective condition of poverty sustains rebellion, but because in a context of poverty and unemployment, an insurgent group that is able to raise enough money can recruit new members . Courtesy - HIMAL ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Tue Jun 4 20:45:53 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:15:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Together We Stand (Ms R.A. Mangathai)(Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) Message-ID: <20020604151553.4411.qmail@web20305.mail.yahoo.com> Together We Stand Ms.R.A.Mangathai, Asst.Professor (Gender studies), SIPARD In the interiors of the hillocks of green Tripura stands the village Dhariathal. Mandara Debbarma is from an agricultural family and she dropped out of school after the madhyamik exam. That was sufficient qualification for her to get married. She was married to a higher secondary pass unemployed youth. As time passed by three children and "Bekar" (unemployed) husband were additions in her life. Her Father- In-Law was a DRW in one of the offices in Bishalgarh. Because of this her husband had never felt the pinch though she dreaded the future. The day she feared had come with the sudden death of her Father-in-Law. Her husband started doing petty jobs here and there. She was taking tuitions for primary school children of the neighborhood. Since all of them were very poor she could earn only Rs 60/- per month. But this was a scanty amount. She had overheard the panchayat members talking about Self Help Groups, and then she found out from the block level functionaries that women could help themselves out with the help of Swanirbhar Dal (SHG). She with the like-minded persons of her neighborhood formed in to Dhariathal Mahila Self-Help Group. This group is of mixed nature in the sense that there were 11 tribal women and 4 non - tribal women. Mandara was a bit alarmed about the composition because of the sensitive ethnic situation in Tripura. But fortunately there was no such problem, may be because they all held a common hope for a bright future. Mandara was the only educated girl so she was chosen by all the members to be their leader. Six of the members were field labourers, three of them were selling puffed rice and the others are not specially employed. In the group, the members are saving Rs 20/- per month. They meet on the 15th of every month. Mandara used to maintain group account, passbook and related matters. Her group members were of not much help as they could only sign and read with great difficulty. In the meetings at least 35%-40% were always absent. But they were sending the savings through other members. Saving of Rs 20/- was a difficult task to be done for them. The common ways of savings are by selling one or two eggs; sell vegetables from their kitchen garden, by selling daily saved rice and savings of 50 paisa whenever they do marketing for the house. After they had completed 6 months the group savings of Rs 1800/- received a boost with a revolving fund of Rs 25,000/-. After getting the revolving fund assistance fourteen of the members have taken the loan from the group savings. Each one of them borrowed Rs 1,500/- for goatery. Only Sandhya an SC widow with 3 children did not take any loan. She was not sure if she takes such a big amount she might not be able to pay back. After they all had taken loan Rs 5820/- was remaining in the bank. Managing such a vast credit account was a problem for Mandara. She used to feel that there was not even a single woman in the group who could help her. She had to explain the same issues again and again. Some times she herself used to get confused. The members continued with repayment but not in uniform installments. This created problem in the accounts maintenance for Mandara. In case they wanted to know how much each one has saved Mandara could not answer, as they are not maintaining individual passbooks. Many of the group members used to bring their near and dear ones with applications for loans. Mandara had to explain them that the money is only for the group members. In spite of all this the members were glad that they are having a source of saving and earning with this the credit. At this juncture Dhariathal Mahila Self Help Group was invited to participate in the training programme on Self-Help Groups at SIPARD, Agartala. Mandara has come to the town (Agartala) for the first time in her life. Her husband who got assistance to set up a carpentry unit a year back told that he will take care of the children and she may go. On reaching SIPARD she was so relived of tension to see that many other SHG leaders are getting registered at the reception. A sense of confidence bloomed in her. The training programme included Concept of SHG, need and scope, prerequisites, identification of future economic activities, capacity building and bookkeeping. The discussions and lectures were held with the help of transparencies, slides and power point presentations. The group leaders were shown the experiences and activities, problems and possible solutions worked out by the SHGs in other parts of the country. Videos were shown about the technical training centers. Elaborate session on bookkeeping was held till 7.30 pm on one-day. A half-day demonstration by an expert in pot painting took teaching on the pot painting and decoration from Andhra Pradesh. A detailed course manual in the form of a Bengali book was given to Mandara along with the other group leaders. Transparencies on SHGs-formation and sustenance were photocopied and given to them. At the end of the training she was really delighted with the material in her hand and the experience and knowledge in her mind. She carried with her one of the pots painted and the flowers she has made with ceramic powder during the process of the pot painting learning. As soon as she reached in the evening she found her group members waiting for her, as she is the only woman in her neighbou rhood to go to Agartala. They have decided to meet the next day. Mandara has become a trainer herself for her group members. She has pasted all the slides in the panchayat office where they hold their meetings. She took the book and explained to all of them page by page. Especially clauses on how to lend loans and loan applications, maintenance of group records and passbooks were clearly explained to them. It is made clear that the monthly meeting is not for pooling of savings only rather it should be the locus of group discussions and activities in different directions. During her deliberation with the group members there were many questions and Mandara found them not so easy to explain though she could do it. She also told them that attendance in the groups is indispensable and there will be a fine in future for being absent. She told them how important it is that a group and collective conscience so that they can do so many things as a group. She had given them the examples she had heard and seen during her training at SIPARD. All of them had gone back home with a new enthusiasm and determination. Mandara with the help of the book given to her and the help of her class VIII daughter has made the book/ledger for loan giving and repayment. She has made a loan application. She along with three other members went to Panchayat samity and collected the individual passbook for everyone. After they all had taken loan Rs 5820/- was remaining in the bank They all started repaying after two months. The women sold the goat at Rs 500-600 each one after 4-6 months with slight variation. Their profit margin from the sales was 1000-2500 per a woman. In the meantime the kids were born to some of the goats. This is a value addition. Each one of them is paying Rs 150/- as repayment of the loan. Mandara with the help of her group members did a survey of the viability of plastic mat making and pot making to take-up as a key activity. By the time the second meeting took place Mandara and some of her group members were with new ideas and new books. The members were taken aback when she had given them individual passbook and began saying that "we have trust in you Mandara". She told them that these books have to be maintained for one's own clarity and that will reduce burden on the group leader and involve the group members. On that day during the half daylong meeting they had decided about their future course of action. They decided to go for plastic basket making and mat making as they already have the skill. The raw material is easily available cheaply and market is readily there. This activity they have decided to do it together the panchayat office everyday at a fixed time. Regarding the pot decoration they planned to make it themselves in small number of 1 or 2 per member and sell in the market during the "Puja" (Dussera) time. The group has savings of around 8000/- in the bank after repayment. All of them had taken loan. Now Mandara and the members themselves are experiencing a gradual change in their group with the adoption of few new rules, practices and decisions. Absence in the meeting has tremendously reduced. Now all the members know that there are prescribed forms to be filled up for borrowing loans and they are aware that production loans by the members is positive for the group. Sandhya was interested to take the loan now with this confidence. In the meetings they are discussing each other's experiences and are planning for better. In their village they wanted to be a model group. They ensured that all the children of the group members are immunized and going to school. Previously they had the desire to put their children in the school, but they could not afford it. But now they have the backup support from the group. The group had taken part in two village "melas" borrowing Rs 2000 /- one mela and Rs 2400/- at another mela. In the case of the first mela the profit was Rs1500/- and in the case of the second it was Rs 2100/-. Each one had their share in the profit including Sandhya. The loan amount was paid back immediately after the mela. Together all of them had made Achar (pickle), Chanachur (dry snacks) and Pitha (sweet). Participation in the Melas was a morale boost to the group. It has instilled a new sense of togetherness, which was not there before, and they had accelerated on their savings also. They were very glad to see SIPARD "Didimani" (Sister) when she visited them and eagerly told her that seeing their successful experience two more self help groups have formed in their village. There is now inter group communication in the village. She is often invited by the new groups to teach them various best practices and rules for the Self-Help Group. She said, " Taravu amader rakam pore Shakthishali hoibo" (Like us even they will become strong later). ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Tue Jun 4 20:48:19 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:18:19 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Pilak , key to Tripura's history (D . Shekharan) (Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) Message-ID: <20020604151819.4950.qmail@web20305.mail.yahoo.com> Pilak, key to Tripura's history By D. Shekharan Nestled in the lush green valley dotted with paddy-fields, sparse human habitation and occasional uplands, Pilak in South Tripura's Belonia subdivision holds the key to Tripura's ancient history. Lying uncared for over the past many decades this archaeological site which gives conclusive proof of the peaceful existence of Hindu-Buddhist culture spanning over 8th to 12th century is all set to catapult Tripura on top of the country's archaeological and tourist map. Pilak first hit the headlines in the seventies with the finds of archaeological artefacts, antiques including sandstone images of Lord Buddha, Mahisasur Mardini, Surya Deb, Avolokiteswar and exquisite terracotta images of Lord Buddha inscribed on it. Speaking on the site, local resident Sanjit Biswas who has saved a lot of archaeological materialsfrom ruin said 'in our boyhood in the mid sixties many people flattened mounds and uplands containing relics of temples and stupas to extend paddy fields and the attempts at preservation of the materials started only since 1973 when the then Chief Minister Mr Sukhamay Sengupta visited the site'. Pilak, located more than a hundred miles south of Agartala, drew the attention of historians and researchers in 1927 when Mr Samarendra Debbarma, a scion of Tripura's royal family, gave detailed references to the glorious antiquity of the place in his book entitled 'Tripura Smriti'. Mr Debbarma's views were later echoed more authoritatively by German scholar Dr H.B.Beshart who spoke highly of the wealth of archaeological matters contained underground. Mr Thaikhai Chowdhury, a Mog tribal and officer of the information department who took a media team on a tour of the site said 'there is reference to Pilak as 'pilakko' in a stone inscription at Mruhang (old and big city), the capital of the old Arakan kingdom in present Myanmar. He asserted on the basis of Mog folklore and tradition of oral history that in remote past there was close cultural link between 'pilakko' and Arakan via Chittaong hill-tracts of present Bangladesh. 'The sculptural and architectural remains of Pilak closely resemble those found in the Maynamoti-Paharpur area in Comilla district of present Bangladesh' Mr Thaikhai Chowdhury added. What, however, has brought Pilak into limelight afresh is the excavation of a full-sized Buddhist stupa in the 'Shyamsundar tilla' area. Explaining the importance of the newly excavated site Mr Narayan Chandra Debnath, a senior conservation assistant of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said' this is a full-size Buddhist stupa built in 11th century on the pattern of architecture during the reign of palas of Bengal '. Mr Debnath who has been in charge of the Pilak site since 1999 said the stupa had been excavated under the supervision of ASI superintendent Mr P.Kumaran since January 1999 and completed in March this year. He pointed out that the stone image of meditating Buddha found in the sanctum sanctorum of the stupa had 'very close affinity to tribal features on the mouth'. He said that Pilak archaeological site was spread over three square kms of land west of Jolaibari market area in Belonia subdivision .' The sites are known as 'Shyamsundar tilla', 'Thakurani tilla', 'Sagar doba', 'Debdaru' 'Basudebbari' around Jolaibari market' Mr Debnath added. Regarding the preservation of the site and its potential as a tourist spot Mr Thaikhai Chowhdury said the ASI had taken over the site since 1999 and its treasure trove was now under protection according to the provisions of government of India's relevant Act of 1958. He asserted that the state government had plans to develop the site for Buddhist tourists of South East Asia and other places' and for this we have submitted a project of Rs 150 crores to centre '. The centre will seek financial assistance from the government of Japan , he added. The state government has already developed the site as a tourist spot by setting up a cafetaria and providing other facilities for visitors from outside. Both Mr Narayan Debnath and Mr Thaikhai Chowdhury said 'it is evident from the excavations and recovery of archaeological materials that between 8th and 12th century Pilak used to be a temple town and a centre of learning where Buddhists and Hindus co-existed peacefully.' The place also lies in a strategic location near the trijunction of Tripura, Chittagong hill-tracts of Bangladesh and present Myanmar' they added. Mr Jawhar Lal Acharjee, an authority on Tripura's history and a prominent numismatist, said 'Pilak is a treasure house of history which is just waiting to be unearthed'. ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Tue Jun 4 20:51:07 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:21:07 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Jamatia 'Hoda' , a unique institution (Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) Message-ID: <20020604152107.5610.qmail@web20305.mail.yahoo.com> Jamatia 'Hoda', a unique institution By Our Special Correspondent There was a time-in not so remote past-when jamatia 'hoda okra' (head priest and supreme community leader) would order summary execution of his hindu tribal brethren found guilty of serious offences against the community. A chilling reminder of the power and clout wielded by the 'okras' of the-by now more than a lakh strong-hindu jamatia community is an incident that occurred in 1985. The golden 'garia' image (highest deity of the jamatia community) had been stolen from a makeshift temple at Koraikaplabari under Udaipur subdivision. The thieves were nabbed within a short while and the image was reinstalled after mandatory consecration. The six jamatia youths charged with the theft were ordered to be buried alive by the 'hoda' under the stewardship of the then all-powerful 'okra', forty seventh in the line, Siddhi Kumar Jamatia. No complaint against the order was ever registered with the police by anyone of the community. Since then pronouncement of death penalty-always the last option for 'hoda okras' has not been heard of but the supreme community leaders continue to hold near complete sway over the socio-religious and cultural affairs of the jamatia community. It is this clout and committed support of the tribal brethren that inspire the incumbent 'okras', 52nd in the line, to carry on their crusade against the banned NLFT militants. During the past three years jamatia 'hoda' has been the rallying point for Tripura's hindu tribesmen in their resistance against the 'gun-point conversion drive'of the church-backed NLFT rebels. Speaking on the issue noted scholar Dr Jagadish Ganchowdhury said 'jamatia tribesmen had always been favoured subjects of Tripura's manikya dynasty monarchs becasue they were the first to settle down to conventional cultivation on plainland and they formed the bulk of the 'maharaja's armed forces. Asserting that jamatia tribesmen have been orthodox hindus over the past five hundred years Dr Gan Chowdhury said 'because of their martial tradition jamatias have always been a proud community steadfastly preserving their religious faith and cultural tradition and you will be surprised to know that in their annual reports the erstwhile british resident commissioners have referred to at least two cases of sati among jamatia tribesmen in the eighteenth century'. The 'hoda' (community council) of the jamatya tribesmen is a unique institution without a parallel in any other hindu tribal communities in northeast or in the rest of the country. The institution of 'hoda' as a guardian of the community was launched in the year 1510 during the reign of king Dhanya Manikya (1490-1520) and incumbent 'okras', Mr Bikram Bahadur and Mr Haricharan Jamatia, elected by the community council for three years, are the 52nd in the line. In their continuing struggle against the outlawed NLFT militants under the leadership of Bikram Bahadur and Haricharan Jamatia the community has made lot of sacrifices. While both the 'okras' continue to be marked men as many as six innocent 'hoda' members lost their lives in NLFT attack at Noabari on September 2 this year. Earlier on December 29 last year as many as 21 'hoda' volunteers were kidnapped en masse though the search operation launched by jamatia youths as well as police personnel ensured the safe return of all of them. Before that the durga puja' pandal of 'okra' Bikram Bahadur had been fired upon by NLFT rebels at Hodrai under Teliamura police station area on October 3 last year. There has not been any major attack on the community or its leaders over the past two months but the threat and intimidation continue as the NLFT rebels have initiated a move to force jamatias to pay 'tax' denied them over the past few years at the instance of the 'hoda'. The secretary of the jamatia 'hoda' Mr Rampada Jamatia said on December 8-9 the 411 state conference of the jamatya 'hoda' will come off in Moupasha area under Amarpur subdivision to discuss a new strategy to protect the interests of the community in matters of religious faith, culture and community affairs. The conference will be attended by representatives of 321 jamatia 'paras' (localities) and 16 'mayals' (panchayats) spread over the West and South Tripura districts of the state where the jamatias are settled. Mr Rampada Jamatia said the 'hoda' would shortly launch a programme of setting up schools,'garia missions', orphanages and other cultural centres. A large plot of land has been acquired by the 'hoda' in the Atharobula area under Udaipur subdivision where the foundation stone of a huge complex was laid by Union Tribal welfare minister Mr Joel Oram on October 7. Mr Rampada jamatia said central intervention was an urgent need to resolve the problem of tribal militancy in Tripura but asserted that the jamatia community would carry on its struggle against all forms of militancy and violence to ensure proper development of the community in all respects. ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com Tue Jun 4 20:53:47 2002 From: sagnik_chakravartty at yahoo.com (=?iso-8859-1?q?Sagnik=20Chakravartty?=) Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 16:23:47 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Book on Tripura insurgency set to storm markets (Courtesy: www.tripurainfo.com) Message-ID: <20020604152347.85081.qmail@web20303.mail.yahoo.com> Book on Tripura insurgency set to storm markets By S Datta Srinibas Das (34), a professional jeep driver, still shudders to visualise the daylight and summary murder he had been witness to: cold blooded killing of a young tribal militant by his commander in front of the hide-out in remote Shermoon area on the Jampui hills of North Tripura. A resident of Ambassa colony in Dhalai district, Srinibas Das had been abducted at gun-point by NLFT from Shikaribari area of the disrict in September 1999 and taken blindfolded across hilly terrain to what he still believes to be Shermoon area . Guarded all along by twenty armed 'sepoys' Srinibas Das one day woke up from his fatigue-induced midday nap to sound of gunfire . What he saw in half stupor petrified him to his appointed place within the NLFT's hide-out : a young militant lying dead in a pool of blood and two tribal elders in tears sitting close by. The elders had complained to the militant commander that the slain militant had raped a girl in their household previous night to which summary killing was the sequel . Soon afterwards others in the group shifted Srinibas to another hide-out from which he was set free after his relatives had made a payment of Rs 20 thousand as ransom. 'Before that I had never seen a sight like this and I still have nightmares' said Srinibas. While the anecdote bears ample testimoy to how the demented tribal youths stalk Tripura's benign hills, other details in "Santras Klanto Tripura"(Terror-stricken Tripura), first detailed and authoritative book , authored through painstaking research by leading journalist Jayanta Debnath, on state's two decade long insurgency, clearly focusses on the so-called militancy propelled by diverse factors. The book which is set to hit book stands in upcoming Kolkata book fair slated to commence later this months provides authentic details for the first time on the connection between church and the militants as well as the nexus between security forces in Bangladesh and the banned militant outfits of Tripura. NLFT's Bangladesh connection is borne out from a letter addressed by the group's commander Sajek Tripura to the local Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) commandant in Khagaracherri district in Chittagong hill-tracts on the problems faced by them. In the copy of the letter, presumably seized from a surrendered NLFT rebel and printed in the book 'Terror-stricken Tripura' the NLFT commander explains their temporary abandonment of a hide-out for fear of Indian security forces . 'It has come to our sharp notice and confirmation that the anti-NLFT squad led by expelled Sanjit Reang and sponsored by Indian Intelligence Agency , RAW is to concentrate near the Indo-Bangladesh border', the letter says as the reason for temporarily withdrawing from a hide-out close to the border with Tripura. Apart from this, author and journalist Jayanta Debnath has made a virtual revelation abut the close connection between NLFT , sections of ATTF and christian church.The copy of a top secret state government's report to union home ministry, printed in the book, proves how the missionaries enjoy a free run in their proselytizing activities in the name of spreading education and providing service to the people. The increasing funds received by the various denominations of the church is proved in cold figures from the officialy reported and published in the book. It shows that remittances from the church in the year 1994-95 was Rs 16 lakh 8 thousand while it rose to Rs 68 lakh 73 thousand in 1997-98. 'Information indicates that some members of extremist outfits frequent some churches and attend prayer in civics' the report poignantly notes. Rich in documentation , Jayanta Debnath's 'Santras Klanto Tripura' ( Terror-stricken Tripura) gives a proper perspective of Tripura's chronic insurgency problem with its's roots in the post-partition history of the state and the daunting socio-economic issues. While authentic statistics and reproduction of vital documents add immensely to the book's value , even a cursory reading of the interrogation reports of militants printed in the book leave one with the inescapable condition that the movement ,propelled by ethnic hatred as the dominant ideology , aims only at mindless violence. Thus NLFT militant Shikinya Koloi candidly discloses to police interrogators how he had been driven to join the outfit for fear of ATTF who had charged the the tribal headmaster of his school in South Tripura's Taidu with a 'tax' notice of eighty thousand in 1994. Plucked thrice in Madhyamik examination Shikinya had failed to collect anything beyond Rs 800 at the request of his headmaster and gave the amount to the ATTF commander Kuchiya Debbarma. But the ATTF strongman did not relent and threatened that unless he managed to hand over the entire amount soon Shikinya would be liquidated. Simply to save his life hounded Shikinya joined rival NLFT and went on a killing and abducting spree before being arrested in 1999. ________________________________________________________________________ Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html From announcements-request at sarai.net Wed Jun 5 10:33:36 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 07:03:36 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #61 - 1 msg Message-ID: <200206050503.HAA29914@mail.waag.org> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. "Context" on Stasis_Space now online! (NewMediaArtProjectNetwork) --__--__-- Message: 1 Reply-To: "NewMediaArtProjectNetwork" From: "NewMediaArtProjectNetwork" To: Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 09:24:19 +0200 Organization: NewMediaArtProjectNetwork Subject: [Announcements] "Context" on Stasis_Space now online! Stasis_Space, the online exhibition space of Stasisfield.com, has unveiled its premiere exhibition. "con|text : an exploration of our changing relationship to the world of words" runs 3 June through 1 July 2002. The gallery can be found at http://www.stasisfield.com/space/. The artists in "con|text" have each approached the issues of language and text from wildly individual standpoints. While common themes emerge from this body of work, "con|text" is very much the work of eight individual artistic voices. Featured in the exhibition are works by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne [Germany], Glenn Bach [USA], e.g.0 [Italy], Daniel Javed [Germany], Jessica Loseby [UK], Luigia Cardarelli [Italy], Kenric McDowell [USA] and Josh Russell [USA]. The works range from downloadable sound pieces and Flash presentations to free font files, manipulated digital imagery and a documented sound walk. Chicagoan John Kannenberg (the site's founder) curated the exhibition, designed its unique presentation interface and wrote the catalog notes. Stasisfield.com is a free mp3 label specializing in micro melodic experimental music. The Stasis_Space exhibition space works in tandem with the label, presenting works of equally challenging depth and relationship to the current digital arts movement. For more information, contact John Kannenberg at john at stasisfield.com. --__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From pankaj at sarai.net Wed Jun 5 23:07:48 2002 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 2002 19:37:48 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Mozilla 1.0 Released Message-ID: <20020605193748.A2510@sarai.net> Hey all, Mozilla 1.0 released grab it now from http://mozilla.org/mirrors.html Read what slashdotters say. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/05/1657221 or Read the fine article on mozzilazine http://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article2278.html -- Pankaj(Im a tru gnu boo boo) Kaushal From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Thu Jun 6 06:32:45 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 10:02:45 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Stop selling arms Message-ID: Dear friend, As soldiers trade mortar fire across Kashmir's disputed border and peasants flee the area, British leaders are at odds about whether they should continue to allow the sales of weapons and aircraft to India and Pakistan. Roger Berry, the chairman of the Commons committees investigating arms exports, has said that the conflict between the two countries was "as clear a case you could get" for an arms ban. But Jack Straw continues to justify the sale to India of 66 Hawk aircraft -- which can be used to train soldiers for nuclear bombing raids -- on the basis of "British commercial interests." It's time to embrace a policy of common sense: Britain will not aid and abet this war mongering; "commercial interests" do not take precedence over the lives of thousands of Kashmiris and millions of Indians and Pakistanis. As long as British arms make their way into the arsenals of these nuclear rivals, attempts to broker peace are hypocritical. As the Guardian points out, the UK would be "making peace in conflicts which our own arms exports may have helped to exacerbate." Given the rift in the national leadership, we have a real opportunity to make a difference if we act quickly. Please contact your MP and ask him/her to support an immediate weapons embargo on India and Pakistan and to make your concerns known to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. You can do this at: http://www.faxyourmp.com If that doesn't work, you can look up the relevant contact information at: http://www.locata.co.uk/commons/ You can also contact Jack Straw directly: Fax: 020 7272 2144 Mail: House of Commons, London SW1A OAA Email: strawj at parliament.uk Patricia Hewitt, Dept Trade and Industry, can be reached at: Fax: 020 7215 5468 Mail: House of Commons, London SW1A OAA Email: npst.hewitt at dti.gsi.gov.uk Even a short message is better than none at all. And the more you communicate in your own words, the more attention will be paid to your call to action. In your message, you may want to highlight some of the following talking points: * The British government is hardly a passive bystander in the arms trade. To the contrary, as author Arundhati Roy put it: "Tony Blair's 'peace' mission a few months ago was actually a business trip to discuss a one billion pound deal . . . to sell Hawk fighter-bombers to India. Roughly, for the price of a single Hawk bomber, the government could provide 1.5 million people with clean drinking water for life." * By most estimates, a nuclear exchange between the two countries would leave 12 million dead and over 7 million seriously wounded. Britain must do everything in its power to restrain the two countries from such violence; an arms embargo would emphasize that the nation is serious in its demand for a peaceful resolution. * Even if a nuclear attack doesn't occur, a conventional war would still devastate Kashmir and result in the deaths of thousands of innocent non-combatants. In these deaths, the UK would be especially culpable, since some are likely to be inflicted with British-made weaponry. * According to scotsman.com, the military firm BAe has sold fighter jets to India and is also currently training Pakistani troops in air combat. Providing such aid to both sides can only increase the damage that will occur if war breaks out. * In 2001, the combined military expenditure of India and Pakistan was 18 billion dollars. Yet over 40% of their populations -- 450 million people -- live below the poverty line. Britain shouldn't encourage this irresponsible spending behaviour. Once you've taken action, please let us know at: http://www.9-11peace.org/embargo.php3 Keeping a good count will help us enhance this lobbying effort. You can also sign up there to receive future email alerts on this and other peace-related topics. And please encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same by forwarding this email to them. Thank you for your help. Together, we can ensure that Britain stops fanning the flames of South Asian conflict. Sincerely, --Eli Pariser 9-11Peace Campaign MoveOn.org Thursday, June 6, 2002 P.S. If you'd like to make even more of an impact, consider attending this event on Saturday at 10 Downing St: South Asia Solidarity Group: "No War in South Asia!" "Stop British Arms Sales to India and Pakistan!" "Vajpayee and Musharraf Must Negotiate!" Mass Protest outside Downing Street and Human Chain Against War and Communalism Saturday 8 June 11.30am to 2.00pm Contact by telephone at 020 7267 0923 or by email at southasia at hotmail.com for more information. --------------------------------------------------------- This is a message from the 9-11peace campaign of MoveOn.org If you wish to remove yourself from this list, please visit our subscription management page at: http://www.moveon.org/subscrip/i.html?id=558-1212778-vsM1%2BZ9HtNC8KuouSZvLP Q -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020606/fef62c85/attachment.html From geert at desk.nl Fri Jun 7 03:30:49 2002 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 08:00:49 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Age (Melbourne): Clouds hang over Indian links References: Message-ID: <028601c20da5$a208dd10$a4de3dca@geert> Cloud hangs over Indian links By Garry Barker The Age Technology Editor June 6 2002 SMH http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/06/06/1022982736852.html The rattle of nuclear sabres over Kashmir has worried hundreds of Australian businesses that, seeking cheaper prices, have been using Indian software developers to build their applications and process their data. The list includes some of the country's biggest corporations and many medium-sized companies. But the winds of war are also blowing others some good, in Australia and in Bali, where Sigma Corporation, owned by Toto Siguri, now finds prospective customers queuing to discuss switching away from the conflict zone. Kurt Reiter, technical director of Red Source Technology, a Port Melbourne-based IT company that is Sigma's Australian partner, says inquiries to his office have trebled since the start of the latest crisis. Some corporations have had substantial operations in India since the Y2K furore, when the big banks, Telstra and others contracted local software companies to check their databases. Most of those relationships have now changed and developed. Some, several banks among them, still have daily satellite and cable transfers of daily financial data. Others get new applications developed there. ANZ, for instance, does not process its data in India but does own a large software facility in Bangalore, where 200 engineers are building the next generation of the bank's financial and online applications. If companies begin pulling back from India, Australia could pick up work. Mr Reiter said the flow of inquiries had picked up markedly since last week: "We normally get about three solid inquiries a week; at the moment, we're getting three a day." In aggregate, Australian companies spend billions of dollars a year with big Indian software houses such as Infosys, Mastek and HCL (Hindustan Computing Ltd). "Now they are bringing their expatriate people back home and wondering whether they should be either moving or backing up their IT support because of the risk of war. It's going to be tricky for many of them who have projects half-completed," Mr Reiter said. He concedes that having a link with a company in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, wasn't exactly a plus for business after Osama bin Ladin's Islamic terrorists hit the World Trade Center on September 11. "People were no more anxious then to put the fate of their business in Muslim hands than they are now to stay in India. But Sigma set up Balicamp, a big purpose-built IT campus in Bali where the population is Hindu and the risk of a Muslim-inspired strike much less." According to Mr Reiter, Indonesia is mounting a serious challenge to India's dominance in low-cost IT outsourcing. Sigma has ISO 9001 accreditation and alliances with Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, Allaire, Oracle and Cold Fusion. "Some people might worry if their outsourcing interests were in Jakarta, but Bali is different, in the local religion and in the working climate," he said. "A lot of Australians don't even realise it's part of Indonesia." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020607/b016fbf1/attachment.html From geert at desk.nl Sun Jun 9 08:49:28 2002 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 13:19:28 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD) - Deadline August 15 References: <028601c20da5$a208dd10$a4de3dca@geert> Message-ID: <04f101c20f64$7a715870$adde3dca@geert> (Note: ICTs is one out of five research areas. The deadline is August 15, 2002. On the site you will find a paper from Shoma Munshi of Amsterdam University about ICTs. Enjoy & apply. Geert) www.idpad.org The Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD) promotes social science research that is of relevance to development in India. With a view to increase relevance and utilisation of research the programme stimulates interaction between researchers and users of research, including policy makers from government and NGO's. IDPAD grew out of intensifying contacts and co-operation between Indian en Dutch social scientists, inspired by the need to explore 'alternatives in development'. The programme was formally launched in 1980 and four phases of research have been implemented since. A fifth phase will start in July 2002. IDPAD favours collaboration between researchers and most of IDPAD's activities are carried out by researchers in India and in The Netherlands working together. IDPAD's main activities are the promotion and funding of research projects, seminars and exchange visits. In addition, the programme provides funding for dissemination of research results, and publishes working papers and a Newsletter. IDPAD encourages female and young scholars to participate in the programme. IDPAD is jointly implemented by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in New Delhi, and The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) in The Hague. Decision making authority rests with the Joint Committee, consisting of members from both India and The Netherlands. The programme is financed by the Dutch government and the government of India. --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020609/c8db264d/attachment.html From geert at desk.nl Sun Jun 9 08:49:32 2002 From: geert at desk.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 13:19:32 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD) - Deadline August 15 References: <028601c20da5$a208dd10$a4de3dca@geert> Message-ID: <04f901c20f64$82b12970$adde3dca@geert> (Note: ICTs is one out of five research areas. The deadline is August 15, 2002. On the site you will find a paper from Shoma Munshi of Amsterdam University about ICTs. Enjoy & apply. Geert) www.idpad.org The Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD) promotes social science research that is of relevance to development in India. With a view to increase relevance and utilisation of research the programme stimulates interaction between researchers and users of research, including policy makers from government and NGO's. IDPAD grew out of intensifying contacts and co-operation between Indian en Dutch social scientists, inspired by the need to explore 'alternatives in development'. The programme was formally launched in 1980 and four phases of research have been implemented since. A fifth phase will start in July 2002. IDPAD favours collaboration between researchers and most of IDPAD's activities are carried out by researchers in India and in The Netherlands working together. IDPAD's main activities are the promotion and funding of research projects, seminars and exchange visits. In addition, the programme provides funding for dissemination of research results, and publishes working papers and a Newsletter. IDPAD encourages female and young scholars to participate in the programme. IDPAD is jointly implemented by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in New Delhi, and The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) in The Hague. Decision making authority rests with the Joint Committee, consisting of members from both India and The Netherlands. The programme is financed by the Dutch government and the government of India. --- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020609/3105f6d8/attachment.html From announce at artengine.ca Fri Jun 7 01:03:39 2002 From: announce at artengine.ca (announce) Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 15:33:39 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] asimilarplace Message-ID: <3CFFB913.65B6301F@artengine.ca> *apologies for cross-posting* "A Similar Place" http://www.artengine.ca/asimilarplace Artengine is very pleased to announce "A Similar Place", a new net art work by Matthijs de Bruijne. This project is Artengine first guest curated project featuring a European artist. Last December 2001, Matthijs de Bruijne traveled for the second time to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This time he brought with him 14 photographs of images from Amsterdam. The purpose was to look for similar sites in Buenos Aires of generic places - such as restaurants, trains, roads, fences, houses - that can be found anywhere in the world. However, when he arrived in Buenos Aires the country was going through a serious period of economic and political turmoil, a situation very much different from that of Amsterdam. It is in this particular context that de Bruijne developed 'A Similar Place'. The project explores notions of migration, despair and defeat. In 14 tableaux Matthijs portrays aspects of life in Buenos Aires as he experimented it during his stay. The work adopts a cinematic perspective. Texts are displayed slowly. They appear as subtitles that enhance the filmic aspect of the piece. The subtitled texts play on different ranges: documentary, fictitious and personal reflection. Each image is associated with a text that expresses the artist's perception of Argentina's new social and economical order. The sound material recorded on-site displays a very effective use of ambient sounds, amplifying the paradox between the images from Amsterdam and the situation in Buenos Aires. The original combination of texts, sounds and images gives new meaning to the pictures and creates a poetic story. - Dominique Fontaine Artist info Born in the Netherlands, in 1967, Matthijs de Bruijne work is process oriented and formed an invisible network with people. His work does not only consist of photographs, videos, audio and texts, etc. - it's a result of a process, a direct communication with people. This communication is an important element or an indispensable instrument in his approach. He uses the terms 're-mapping" to refer to his exploration in his work of cities an new places with which he is not familiar. He graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, 1990-1994 (Voorheen Audiovisueel) and was an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten (Amsterdam) from 1999-2000. Matthijs de Bruijne works and lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Selected Exhibitions 2002 "Side Effects", Irida Foundation, Sofia, Bulgaria "Regionalisten", PRPL FBRK, Nijmegen, The Netherlands 2001 "Een lege plek om te blijven", Watou, Belgium "No es lo que parace ser", La Casona de los Olivera, Buenos Aires 2000 "AD:RES:", Brussels 2000, Brussels "Their City", site specific exchange project, Lisbon 1999 "Doel Zonder Oorzaak", W139, Amsterdam "Medium for Exchange", Østre Anlæg, Copenhagen Web projects "It's not what is seems to be" http://www.w139.nl "Their City" http://www.outsite.net/theircity "Medium for exchange" http://www.outsite.net/exchange "An Analysis of an Unknown "http://www.outsite.net/analysis Dominique Fontaine is a freelance curator currently working and living in Montréal, Québec. E: dofontaine at yahoo.ca Artengine is a Canadian artist-run, not-for-profit, federally incorporated organization and internet site for visual and new media artists devoted to the propagation of art on the internet as well as to the artistic exploration of new technologies. http://www.artengine.ca From energytransfer at eudoramail.com Fri Jun 7 01:53:00 2002 From: energytransfer at eudoramail.com (Kabir Carter) Date: Thu, 06 Jun 2002 13:23:00 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Shared Frequencies Message-ID: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT KABIR CARTER AT (212) 981-5546 OR sharedfrequencies at eudoramail.com PUBLIC ART PROJECT "SHARED FREQUENCIES" TO COMMENCE BROADCAST IN JUNE WHAT: Shared Frequencies, a series of public presentations of urban environmental sound and walkie talkie transmissions mixed and electronically processed through a live, mobile P.A. system. WHERE: Various streetside locations in New York City. WHEN: For three months beginning in June. Public events to be announced via email (sharedfrequencies at eudoramail.com). Kabir Carter, the project's organizer, will present a limited series of impromptu and scheduled public presentations of the project. Shared Frequencies combines urban environmental sound with 2-way radio transmissions (within a limited radius) and signal processing to create both live and recorded "snapshots" of sonic phenomena that are instantaneously transmitted and "broadcast" courtesy a mobile P.A. system. Kabir Carter is an artist whose work in electroacoustics and sound art presently focuses on the roles that urban environmental sound and acoustic communications technology play in constructing social and acoustic space. In this project, individuals will be encouraged to become involved through active listening and participation in an ad hoc and real time acoustic rendering of the urban landscape. As an additional twist on the notion of street vending, CD recordings of previous transmissions and presentations will be made available to the public free of charge (a donation equal to the actual cost of the CD will be asked and all money received will be used to produce additional CDs). As a rereading and reversal of the function of the street "artist" (busker/musician, vendor of inexpensive (and sometimes pirated) wares), Shared Frequencies hopes to put the pedestrian in the position of the listener, the listener in the position of the sound producer, and the sound producer in the position of the passerby and itinerant vendor. By shifting the roles and functions of passersby and vendors, A new psychogeographic terrain is exposed; the sounds that are transmitted, processed, and recorded will help map its routes and construct its architecture. Projected outdoor studio locations include: 125th Street and Lenox Avenue; Astor Place; Canal Street and Broadway; Ave. of the Americas & 8th Street; 42nd Street and Times Square; Metrotech Center in Brooklyn; and others. Presentations will be announced via email and information on the project can be received by contacting sharedfrequencies at eudoramail.com. Shared Frequencies is funded by a New York City Independent Radio and Sound Art Fellowship, a program of Media Alliance funded by The Jerome Foundation. Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com From prajaf at vsnl.com Fri Jun 7 16:51:00 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 16:51:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Viva Coke! Message-ID: <01b201c20e15$7c2cad40$bc3fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> This article is five years old but the message is still clear! (BTW, if you don't like Coke, I'm sure Pepsi / Thums Up / etc would suffice as well ;-) Yazad Jal Chief Executive Officer PRAJA Foundation www.praja.org Board of Advisors Association of Youth for a Better India (AYBI) www.aybi.org COCA-COLA MAP Next year, the french-fry index Dec 18th 1997 From ravis at sarai.net Mon Jun 17 01:23:20 2002 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 01:23:20 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Left wakes up (slowly) to free software Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20020617010454.02d2d5a8@mail.sarai.net> The issue of free software seems to have strangely passed the left in this country by.. This review came out in New Left Review (it was also posted in nettime), what was strange (but not surprising) was that NLR took so long to come to terms with such issues. For a long time the aging and (old-new) Left in the West looked at free software advocates as either as muddled libertarians, or confused anarchists. In that context this review of a biography of Richard Stallman is a welcome departure. Stallman, as some Delhi-based list readers will remember, spoke at Sarai on February of this year. New Left Review 15, May-June 2002 URL: http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR24907.shtml JULIAN STALLABRASS DIGITAL COMMONS The following passage appears very rarely in the copyright notice of a printed book: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. It is to be found on the opening page of a new biography of the free-software programmer and activist, Richard Stallman, and (as the epilogue recounts) the unusual arrangement under which it is published is due to his stern insistence. The notice means what it says: anyone is free to copy, change and disseminate the book, provided they obey a set of rules, of which the most important are (a) that they must reproduce invariant portions of the text, protecting the recognition of its author, and (b) that any modified or copied text be subject to the same GFD licence. Furthermore, from June 2002, Sam Williams plans to publish the biography on the web site www.faifzilla.org, where readers can help to improve the work, or create a personalized version . . . We realize there are many technical details in this story that may benefit from additional or refined information. As this book is released under the GFDL, we are accepting patches just like we would with any free software program. Accepted changes will be posted electronically and will eventually be incorporated into future printed versions of this work. As the book makes plain, Stallman is an extraordinary figurea programmer of surpassing skill, capable of matching the output of entire commercial teams with his spare, elegant code; and a tireless, principled and uncompromising activist who initiated and fostered the notion of a data commons. Stallman not only developed the conceptual details of what has become known as ‘copyleft’ (it is sometimes indicated with a reversed © symbol), creating public-ownership licences that cover software and documents, but he also laboured to produce the fundamental elements of a free-software operating system a no-cost alternative to Windows, Mac OS and the rest, which anyone could download and improve. It was Stallman who, in the eighties, initiated and led work on a free-software version of Unix, which he dubbed GNU (a typically recursive programmer’s joke, this, the initials standing for GNU’s Not Unix). The extraordinary ambition to realize such a system was finally achieved using elements of GNU alongside a kernel written as a stop-gap, originally by Linus Torvalds, and developed into the Linux system; which, thanks to the efforts of thousands of collaborators internationally, has become a threat to Microsoft’s monopoly. With his waist-length hair, flowing beard, brown polyester trousers and ill-matched T-shirts, Stallman himself is quite a contrast to Seattle’s Digital Godfather. Born in 1953 he was, according to his mother, devouring calculus textbooks by the age of seven. Educated in New York’s state schools, supplemented by Saturday sessions at the Columbia Honours Programme, he initially led the isolated existence of a mathematical wunderkind, reading science fiction and MAD magazine, alienated from the 1960s protest movements. Studying mathematics at Harvard, he found his way to the Artificial Intelligence laboratory at MIT, and moved there for his postgraduate work. (Though officially independent of the Institute now, Stallman still operates out of 545 Tech Square.) It was at the AI lab that Stallman came into his own. There he found a tight-knit, highly collaborative group of dedicated hackers who exchanged information freely, working within egalitarian and informal structures. Openness was central to their ethos, and was defended vigorously and practicallyby breaking into offices where terminals had been left idle behind locked doors, for instance. Stallman even fought against the use of passwords. In the 1970s these programmers would freely exchange and tailor pre-compiled source codes, improving and customizing them to suit their requirements. From the turn of the 1980s, as the use of computers spread and software became a valuable commodity, companies copyrighted their programs and withdrew the source codes from the public domain. For programmers like Stallman, this was an assault on what they most cared about, as material that they had worked on for years was snatched from their graspan act analogous to the enclosure of common land. Stallman swiftly arrived at a strong position opposing this development: he would not use software that he was not allowed to alter or give to others. Computer codes were not scarce in the way that material goods were. Stallman likened them to recipes: to prevent people from swapping them, or tinkering with them to suit their tastes, was authoritarian, morally wrong, and a pollution of once open and collaborative social relations. Stallman argues that while companies address the issue of software control only from the point of view of maximizing profits, the community of hackers has a quite different perspective: ‘What kind of rules make possible a good society that is good for the people in it?’. The idea of free software is not that programmers should make no money from their efforts indeed, fortunes have been made but that it is wrong that the commercial software market is set up solely to make as much money as possible for the companies that employ them. Free software has a number of advantages. It allows communities of users to alter code so that it evolves to become economical and bugless, and adapts to rapidly changing technologies. It allows those with specialist needs to restructure codes to meet their requirements. Given that programs have to run in conjunction with each other, it is important for those who work on them to be able to examine existing code, particularly that of operating systems indeed, many think that one of the ways in which Microsoft has maintained its dominance has been because its programmers working on, say, Office have privileged access to Windows code. Above all, free software allows access on the basis of need rather than ability to pay. These considerations, together with a revulsion at the greed and cynicism of the software giants, have attracted many people to the project. Effective communities offering advice and information have grown up to support users and programmers. The free exchange of software has led some commentators to compare the online gift economy with the ceremony of potlatch, in which people bestow extravagant presents, or even sacrifice goods, to raise their prestige. Yet there is a fundamental distinction between the two, since the copying and distribution of software is almost cost-free at least if one excludes the large initial outlay for a computer and networking facilities. If a programmer gives away the program that they have written, the expenditure involved is the time taken to write it any number of people can have a copy without the inventor being materially poorer. An ideological tussle has broken out in this field between idealists, represented by Stallman, who want software to be really free, and the pragmatists, who would rather not frighten the corporations. The term ‘free’, Eric Raymond argues in his book The Cathedral and the Bazaar, is associated with hostility to intellectual property rights even with communism. Instead, he prefers the ‘open source’ approach, which would replace such sour thoughts with ‘pragmatic tales, sweet to managers’ and investors’ ears, of higher reliability and lower cost and better features’. For Raymond, the system in which open-source software such as Linux is produced approximates to the ideal free-market condition, in which selfish agents maximize their own utility and thereby create a spontaneous, self-correcting order: programmers compete to make the most efficient code, and ‘the social milieu selects ruthlessly for competence’. While programmers may appear to be selflessly offering the gift of their work, their altruism masks the self-interested pursuit of prestige in the hacker community. In complete contrast, others have extolled the ‘communism’ of such an arrangement. Although free software is not explicitly mentioned, it does seem to be behind the argument of Hardt and Negri’s Empire that the new mode of computer-mediated production makes ‘cooperation completely immanent to the labour activity itself’. People need each other to create value, but these others are no longer necessarily provided by capital and its organizational powers. Rather, it is communities that produce and, as they do so, reproduce and redefine themselves; the outcome is no less than ‘the potential for a kind of spontaneous and elementary communism’. As Richard Barbrook pointed out in his controversial nettime posting, ‘Cyber Communism’, the situation is certainly one that Marx would have found familiar: the forces of production have come into conflict with the existing relations of production. The free-software economy combines elements associated with both communism and the free market, for goods are free, communities of developers altruistically support users, and openness and collaboration are essential to the continued functioning of the system. Money can be made but need not be, and the whole is protected and sustained by a hacked capitalist legal tool copyright. The result is a widening digital commons: Stallman’s General Public Licence uses copyright or left to lock software into communal ownership. Since all derivative versions must themselves be ‘copylefted’ (even those that carry only a tiny fragment of the original code) the commons grows, and free software spreads like a virus or, in the comment of a rattled Microsoft executive, like cancer. Elsewhere, a Microsoft vice-president has complained that the introduction of GPLs ‘fundamentally undermines the independent commercial-software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product’ rather than just the distribution costs. Asked about his wider political convictions, Stallman replies: I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom . . . Because the more well-known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn't say that free software is as important as they are. It’s the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them. In fact, a look at Stallman’s homepage, www.stallman.org, shows that he is trying to mobilize public opinion over a wide range of political issues. Beyond the ‘puddle’, though, Stallman’s ideas do have wider resonance. As music, films, images and texts have become digitized, lifted from their material substrata of plastic or paper, many of the considerations that apply to free software come to bear on them. The issue again is not just about copying but altering. In NLR 13, Sven Lütticken eloquently described the advantages of intellectual ‘theft’. Online, the challenges to copyright are considerable, as people swap files using peer-to-peer programs that sidestep centralized surveillance and control. This free exchange of cultural goods is pursued not simply for consumption but to provide material for active alteration most clearly so in music, where the sampling and mixing of diverse sources is common, but also in video, with ‘fan cuts’ of TV shows and films. Sometimes such appropriations are undertaken with subversive intent for instance, in the copying of official websites for satirical purposes, such as those sponsored by the group RTMark, at www.rtmark.com. In the world of on-line art, attempts to claim exclusive ownership of works or sites have often been met with the practical political act of hacking and illicit copying. Stallman himself distinguishes between what he calls functional works (software tools, manuals and reference guides, for example), scientific and historical works, and works of art; in his view, all should be freely copied and distributed, but the latter two should only be modifiable if their authors assent. Stallman, whose defence of free software is in essence a moral one, has no doubt that free distribution should apply equally to cultural goods: ‘The number of people who find Napster useful . . . tells me that the right to distribute copies not only on a neighbour-to-neighbour basis, but to the public at large, is essential and therefore may not be taken away’. In a now well-known formulation, Stallman says of free software: ‘Don’t think free as in free beer; think free as in free speech.’ Yet in fact much free software is actually costless, or very nearly so; likewise, swapped files containing music, pictures or video are extremely cheap to download. While to do so is often illegal under current copyright law, it is unclear whether the law could actually be enforced any more successfully in this area than it was over copying music to cassette tapes. Many of the advantages that work in favour of free software also apply to other goods particularly, but not solely, those in digital form. The argument about the efficiency that results from rapid peer review is of considerable importance. At www.foresight.org, K. Eric Drexler’s pioneering essay on the potential of hypertext points up the fact that conversation on paper develops slowly (certainly in academic circles), due to the time needed for review, resubmission, publication and distribution, and the same is true of any riposte that may be published. What is more, the final result remains unchangeable, and isolated from the comments it has provoked. Hypertext allows for rapid revision, collapses the time-scale involved in getting a response and can link all related texts together. Free copying, linking and alteration are essential to this process. With cultural works, the right to alter is a free speech issue, as becomes clear when artists are sued for tampering with images of Barbie, using company logos or even invoking company names. Corporations not only want to give their brands and images powerful cultural currency, but also to control their further use. To be unable to play with the image of Mickey Mouse or Ronald McDonald due to the threat of litigation is a fundamental form of cultural censorship. Equally, the copying and alteration of online art works by other artists has been very important to the development of much Net art theft being seen as a form of flattery. The ‘copyleft’ issue has major implications for the Left itself. Consider the example of NLR. Its on-line policy is to make all current political interventions, and a selection of articles from each issue, freely available at www.newleftreview.org, while electronic access to the entire contents of the journal is available only to subscribers. At the same time, the journal is protected by copyright and raises the money that it needs to be published at all from subscriptions, bookshop sales and reprint rights. Under the copyleft agreement, distribution of NLR material would be freely granted to all those who had a desire or need for it. Those who could afford the convenient and attractive packaging of the material that the physical magazine offers would still buy it, but those who needed the material without being able to afford the packaging would not be denied. Furthermore, documents could be annotated, updated, and placed alongside critiques (this can take place with convenience and speed on the Web, but need not be confined to the virtual sphere). As with free software, the ambition would be to foster a widening commons of writing and other cultural material, a sphere in which access is determined primarily by need and not price. In cases like this, would not the gamble offered by copyleft be that widening access, and the goodwill that it creates, increases rather than reduces income? Until nanobots labour over physical manufactured goods, free beer will not be on offer - though the artist and programmer Joshua Portway has remarked that Christ’s miracle with the loaves and fishes produced the first open-source sandwich. Yet free speech and a free culture protected by the very mechanisms put in place to restrict ownership and maximize profits can be. The ‘left’ in copyleft should be taken seriously, as a matter of expediency and principle. In this way, Stallman’s small puddle of freedom may become connected to an ocean -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020617/3cc012ec/attachment.html From prajaf at vsnl.com Mon Jun 17 20:29:11 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 20:29:11 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Rural development-Indian babu style Message-ID: <00af01c2160f$8d0aa200$693fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> http://www1.ndtv.com/columns/showcolumns.asp?id=810 F for Failure Sreenivasan Jain Wednesday, February 6, 2002: Not very long ago, a team of about 40 accountants from the Rural Development Ministry left for a visit that would take them to 30 districts in 13 Indian states. Their mission: an internal audit of some of India’s biggest rural development projects: IRDP, DWACRA, JRY, IAY, EAS. To an outsider, these acronyms reveal little of the ambitious sweep, at least in conception, of these multi-crore schemes, some of which have been in place for almost 30 years. The men and women of the Ministry began their investigations at the offices of the District Rural Development Authority, or DRDA, meant to be, at least on paper, the organization that receives and then distributes money to the very poor to build low-cost homes, create jobs, train women, pay out pensions to the old and destitute or to pregnant women. From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Sat Jun 15 20:19:27 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 15 Jun 2002 14:49:27 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Truth about Iftikhar Geelani's arrest: The Kashmir Times Message-ID: <20020615144927.17479.qmail@webmail11.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020615/bb96932e/attachment.pl From rustam at cseindia.org Mon Jun 17 12:53:19 2002 From: rustam at cseindia.org (rustam) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 12:53:19 +530 Subject: [Reader-list] Tax and war Message-ID: <3E3044738@cseindia.org> An interesting link on where the tax dollars of the American public goes http://www.warresisters.org/piechart.htm 'Refuse to pay all or part of your income tax. Though illegal, thousands of Americans are openly participating in this form of protest.' Food for thought for Indian taxpayers. Till the next March 31st... Taxfully yours, Rustam **************************************************************** * NOTE CHANGE IN OUR EMAIL ADDRESS: PLEASE NOTE IT AS FOLLOWS * **************************************************************** CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT ( CSE ) 41, TUGHLAKABAD INSTITUTIONAL AREA, NEW DELHI- 110 062 TELE: 608 1110, 608 1124 608 3394, 608 6399 FAX : 91-11-608 5879 VISIT US AT: http://www.cseindia.org Email: rustam at cseindia.org **************************************************************** From rustam at cseindia.org Mon Jun 17 11:19:32 2002 From: rustam at cseindia.org (rustam) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 11:19:32 +530 Subject: [Reader-list] (Fwd) Fw: Message-ID: <252CD7A59@cseindia.org> War on Peace.... Rustam ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: "Pervin Jehangir" To: "Prerana " Subject: Fw: Date sent: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 15:33:06 +0530 Send reply to: pervinj2000 at yahoo.co.uk ----- Original Message ----- From: anand To: peopletree at vsnl.com ; pjehangir at hotmail.com ; pooh at vsnl.com ; fespepol at dada.it ; praful at del3.vsnl.net.in ; prafulbidwai at vsnl.com ; ptimumbai at vsnl.net.in ; raja_mohanty at hotmail.com ; rajdeep at ndtv.com ; bmrrpia at cc.iitb.ac.in ; RAMAKANT at GLOBALINK.ORG ; ranchi at bitsmart.com Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 12:31 PM Press UPDATE: Censor Board's war on "WAR AND PEACE" Our worst fears have come true. We had suspected that the Censor Board's delay in appointing an examining committee to officially view our video War and Peace and the extraordinary measures taken to ban even officially sanctioned non-commercial screenings in the interim, were an ominous sign. We felt that contrary to norms, there was no level playing field and far from being in the hands of objective government officials, we were up against a very interested party with a strong political agenda. War and Peace had won the Best Film/Video of the Festival at the Mumbai International Film Festival, and the Films Division of India (which comes under the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting) attempted to show it along with other award winning films at their festival in Kolkata. The Regional Officer of the Censor Board in Mumbai boasted to us that he would stop the Kolkata screening. The next day while other films which had no censor clearance were shown, the inaugural film War and Peace was withdrawn. The Kolkata press was duly told that the "film had not arrived" despite the fact that we had a receipt to prove the contrary. The examining committee of the Censor Board finally saw the film on 6 June. After the screening though I was present, I was informed that contrary to norms, the committee members would not discuss anything with me as they could not reach consensus. The following week the final outcome was given to me in writing. It makes remarkable reading. The cuts demanded are unprecedented and the methodical, single-minded approach is inconsistent with that of a group that could not reach consensus. Cut No.1 sounds reasonable. It is: "Delete the visuals of burning Indian flag". This scene depicting Pakistani jingoism balances sequences of Indian jingoism. But obviously the Censor Board has no objection to scenes showing the burning Pakistani flag. "War and Peace" consistently exposes war-mongers and applauds peace lovers on both sides of the border. This is clearly not something the Censor appreciates. Cut No. 2 "Delete the entire sequence with visuals and dialogues spoken by the Dalit leader" refers to a sequence in which a Dalit neo-Buddhist argues that it is a travesty that nuclear tests were carried out on Buddha's birthday and that the Buddha's name was used as a military code to mark the tests despite the fact that the Buddha has always been unarmed. Cut No. 3 is a demand to cut a Dalit song which describes the killing of Mahatma Gandhi by a Brahmin. So now the Censor feels bold enough to muzzle the voices of those whom our caste system oppressed for centuries, even when they merely make factual statements ! Cut No.4 is an order to cut a sentence by a leading scientist that "China is our next possible enemy". This common justification for our nuclear weapons was endlessly repeated in the media by our politicians including most famously, by our Defense Minister. Cut No.5 is a predictable though thoroughly unjustifiable demand: "Delete the visuals and dialogues of entire Tehelka episode wherever it occurs in the film." Over 4 hours of these Tehelka tapes showing hidden camera footage of corrupt arms deals were broadcast nationally at prime time. The tiny extracts I used are a mere reference to what the public saw at length on almost every channel. Again, the Censor Board's bias is clear. Tehelka is not allowable because it depicts members of the ruling coalition, but my reference to the Bofors arms scandal is deemed OK as it indicts the Opposition ! Cut No.6 is the clincher. Under the heading GENERAL is the amazing diktat: "Delete the entire visuals and dialogues spoken by Political Leaders including Minister and Prime Minister." The censor board has deemed it unnecessary to pinpoint exactly which leader's visuals and dialogues they disliked so much that the public should be protected by suitable deletions. The heading GENERAL applies to all. The Censor Board deems it illegal to report the speeches of Ministers, Prime Ministers and all Political Leaders. Do we have a new Secrecy Act? Should Messrs Vajpayee, etc wear a mask from now on, and speak only in code? Or should only those who elevate every word of politicians into gospel and visualize these politicians only when they are the politician's wearing halos, be allowed to film ? War and Peace begins and ends with the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. (Perhaps this too is now illegal as it could come under the Cut No.6 dispensation). Focusing on the danger of nuclear war in the Indian subcontinent the video goes on to describe the problems faced by people living near nuclear testing and mining sites, the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the culpability of the USA in using Atom bombs on a nation that was about to surrender, the globalization of the arms trade, but most of all it derives its power and emotional appeal from the growing movement for peace both in India and in Pakistan. Unfortunately in both countries there is an invisible force that does not want peace, a force that has come to power precisely by spreading divisiveness within the country and the sustained threat of war outside it. This force has cynically used concepts of religion and patriotism to hide its own hate-corrupted psyche and has sought to muzzle the voices of all those who speak out for health, harmony and peace. So it will not be enough to demand merely that films like "War and Peace" be passed without cuts. Officials of the Censor Board must be made to understand that their brief cannot be to wield their scissors in the interests of particular ideologies. We must demand that the Censor Board and all the vital institutions in our country be freed from the undemocratic grip of "the invisible force". Anand Patwardhan 14 June 2002 ------- End of forwarded message ------- **************************************************************** * NOTE CHANGE IN OUR EMAIL ADDRESS: PLEASE NOTE IT AS FOLLOWS * **************************************************************** CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT ( CSE ) 41, TUGHLAKABAD INSTITUTIONAL AREA, NEW DELHI- 110 062 TELE: 608 1110, 608 1124 608 3394, 608 6399 FAX : 91-11-608 5879 VISIT US AT: http://www.cseindia.org Email: rustam at cseindia.org **************************************************************** From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 16 22:18:41 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 01:48:41 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] FW: Aman Ekta Manch Digest No.5 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi This is a mailer from Aman Ekta Manch in Delhi....if you already have received it or would not like to receive it, I am sorry.If you like to get it regularly, please mail them on: peopleforpeace at rediffmail.com Aman Ekta Manch is an umbrella organisation of ngo's and individuals working in Delhi for relief efforts in Gujarat.If you like I could send you the earlier digests. Gurpal Dear Friends, More violence erupted in Ahemedabad - fires are still burning. The attempts by the government to close down relief camps continue - rehabilitation still remains a big question. In the meantime, war seems less of a possibility with the two prime ministers toning down on their positions - the outcome is still far from clear. Voices of peace continue to flow in. We invite you to write in and use this digest as a platform to voice your thoughts and perceptions about the current situation. We need to hear more and more voices of sanity. And peace. A note to a letter we received saying we are picking up articles inverbatim from other sources - the Digest is being mailed by us to nearly a 1000 readers and we have been getting very positive responses from the readers. Just as we have been taking articles from various sources to add to the digest, other sources have taken material from the digest to pass on the articles to their network. This spells tremendous success for all those involved in the peace initiatives, as these voices of peace find larger and larger grounds to reach out. In Solidarity, Aman Ekta Manch _________________________________________________________ Digest No.5 [June 2002] __________________________ Contents : 1).Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal (page 1 -6) 2).Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik (page 6-7) 3).Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy (page 8-9) 4).Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani (page 10-12) 5).Poet Of The Reich By Anita Pratap (page 12 -13) 6).Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi (page 14-16) _________________________________________________________ 1.Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal EPW Commentary June 01, 2002 _________________________________________________________ The economic relation between the adivasis and the Muslims in rural north Gujarat is of the kind that most radical analysts have deemed to be sufficient to justify a violent class struggle. And that is just how the VHP is likely to project it as in the coming days - an explanation for adivasi participation in the violence that could be quite embarrassing for radical analysts. It is time for radical analysts to give up simplistic assumptions and modes of analysis, not for the sake of the VHP, but for possible progress in human affairs. The predominant emotion as one leaves Gujarat is that of fear. Not the fear that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has been watching what you have been doing there and will catch up with you and cut you up or burn you alive. It may, but if you have been a human rights activist long enough, you have come to terms with the idea that you could be killed some day. Nor that the next time half an opportunity offers itself, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad will kill more Muslims in Gujarat. It will, but they could be killed by an earthquake, any way. It is the fear of how much hatred human hearts can be filled with, and how easily. Forget about burning human beings alive and prancing gleefully around as the tortured flesh thrashes about. Forget also about cutting open a pregnant woman's womb to burn the foetus. Such people are at least killing something alive. Can you imagine the state of mind that digs up an old grave, pours petrol on to the presumed remains of a long dead Muslim and sets it aflame? The common Hindu's hatred for anything to do with Muslims, an intense and inflamed hatred, is the only thing alive in Gujarat today. Don't talk to the Sangh parivar cadre. They are barely human anyway. Talk to the clerk in an office, to the housewife, to the taxi driver, to the college-going student. Most of them spew venom. One feels sorry for saying this of a whole people. One has, of course, met a handful of Gujarati Hindus who are different. Not only English-speaking liberals of Ahmedabad and Vadodara, but also farmers and labourers. But they are just that, a bare fistful. Cutting across divisions of caste, class, gender, town and country, Gujarat is one mass of hatred for Muslims. The history of the state, dominated over the last few years by the Sangh parivar, has come to this. Can one teach love as easily as that? Radical-minded people feel insecure about such questions, for they could be fatal to our utopian dreams. But while dreams are all right, and probably also necessary, we should have the honesty to pare them down to realistic dimensions. If hatred is so easy to build and love so difficult, and an uneasy tolerance the most we achieve when we work for love, how utopian can our dreams afford to be? This is, of course, a very big question. So big that leftist analysis of Nazism in Europe, of which there have been tomes upon tomes, never faced it honestly. Not even Erich Fromm, who came closest to looking it in the face but backed out in the last moment. But there are smaller and equally uncomfortable questions. The participation of adivasis and dalits in the rioting, looting and killing is one such. Some initial reports said that where adivasis participated in the violence, they neither raped nor killed but only looted the property. To be fair to such views, there was perhaps not much information available at that time. The view appears to have based itself upon the events of the Chotaudepur area of Vadodara district. But in Chotaudepur, even the non-adivasis did not rape or kill. They too only looted the property of the Muslims. In all the areas along the north-eastern border of the state (Sabarkantha, Panchmahals, Dahod and Chotaudepur) there was sizeable participation of adivasis along with non-adivasis in the violence. The two were part of the same mob in most cases, with the non-adivasis leading. In some places, the mobs only looted and burnt. In some places there was rape and murder too. A break up of the violence into that which the adivasis did and that which the others did may not be easy. The most gory incidents of mass rape in the entire Gujarat carnage (at least so far as we know now) took place at Fatehpura in Dahod district, where the mob consisted of a large number of adivasis of neighbouring villages, along with the non-adivasis of Fatehpura. It was said by some NGOs of Ahmedabad that only the non-adivasis raped women and the adivasis only looted the property. That may be true, for the non-adivasis being locals to the village may well have reserved that 'privilege' to themselves, but one would like to know if the opinion is based on something more reliable than political faith. In Fatehpura itself, the Muslims in the refugee camp do not make such a clear distinction, though there is a general feeling among the Muslims that the adivasis are not bad by themselves, but are misguided by the Hindus of the Sangh parivar. At Sanjeli in the same district the Muslims fleeing from the mob (of non-adivasis and adivasis) which attacked their houses in the town were obstructed all along the way, and many were stoned, pulled out from their vehicles, hacked with swords and burnt and killed by the rampaging mob many of whom had their faces half-masked. The taluka of Kallol in the Panchmahals saw a large amount of violence including about a hundred killings by mobs that included both non-adivasis and adivasis. Again, in both the cases, a break up of who did what may not be easy. Sabarkantha is a district where there were a number of incidents of adivasis helping and sheltering Muslims attacked by Hindu mobs. There were also a number of cases where dalits saved Muslims in this district. However kshatriyas too played a role in protecting Muslims in some of these villages. What was at work there was not the presumed democratic character of dalits and adivasis, but in all probability, what has been called the KHAM strategy of the Congress Party, which still has sizeable influence in Sabarkantha. What is more striking than the observations of progressive-minded people based on their assumptions about what ought to have been the response of adivasis and dalits, is the hesitation voiced by many Muslims in the refugee camps in condemning the adivasis who attacked them. Since the hesitation, which is near-universal, could not be motivated by considerations of 'political correctness' (to use an obnoxious expression that has become current in recent times) it must be attributed to some thing real. Most of the victims insist that the adivasis were misled by the Sangh parivar leaders. But 'misled' can have more than one meaning, and not all of them carry the same political significance. Both in Panchmahals and Sabarkantha it is said that in some of the villages the Sangh parivar leaders told the adivasis that there was a government order to loot. (But of course, there was!) This was buttressed by TV images of people looting freely in Ahmedabad with the police looking on. The adivasis took the permission to heart - the northern districts of Gujarat have seen three successive drought years - and in some villages, after looting Muslims shops, they fell upon Hindu shops as well. At Piplod in Dahod district, the police had to step in and put an end to the unauthorised looting of Hindu shops. Even where there was no mention of a government order, the widespread news and TV images of Muslims' property being looted without obstruction from the police was incentive enough to the poor to try their luck. Though it did not always end up with the looters turning their attention to Hindu property after finishing with the Muslims, the Hindus appear to be scared that the adivasis who have tasted loot will not stop there. But not all the participation of adivasis was as innocent as that. Which takes us to the other meaning of the expression 'misled'. The Vanavasi Kalyan Samiti of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has made considerable inroads into the adivasi areas. When asked what activity they offer to the adivasis, an old Sangh parivar man at Chotaudepur says: "We tell them to campaign against drink in their villages and undertake bhajans of Hindu deities". 'Murtis' of Ganesh are distributed free of cost to the adivasis. It is said that every adivasi village has at least one VHP activist. The search for an identity that has accompanied the growth of education among the adivasis has been filled by the Sangh parivar, says an adivasi MLA, himself a Congressman. The poisonous parivar has done an able job of it. The adivasis are in the process made to feel that they are Hindus, in the specific hate-filled sense in which that term is understood by the Sangh parivar. As a (Muslim) principal of a predominantly adivasi college near Chotaudepur puts it: "The new convert to Islam is always more ferocious in defending the religion than the traditional Muslim, and the same could be happening to the adivasis". If he is right, there could be a very serious problem here that 'political correctness' had better comprehend. Of course, the newly educated adivasis' search for an identity could have reached a different shore. We should, then, ask ourselves why no democratic movement has ever achieved even a toe-hold in the vast adivasi area of Gujarat and much of neighbouring Rajasthan. Standing there and looking at Delhi, Somnath Chatterjee's otherwise impressive speech in parliament could not but sound hollow. What is the point in thundering at Delhi, having left the field free in the adivasi hamlets for the Vishwa Hindu Parishad? This is not a comment on only Somnath Chatterjee's party, but on the entire democratic movement of the country. Dalit participation in the violence at Ahmedabad (in particular) is even less ambiguous. A large number of dalit youth took direct part in the gruesome violence of that city. And it is the dalits who have suffered most in the little retaliation the Muslims have indulged in. The only non-Muslim relief camps (there are about five of them in Ahmedabad) are populated predominantly by dalits. As with the adivasis, the dalits too have been left by all of us for the VHP to prey upon. There is almost no dalit movement in Gujarat, nor has the left movement any base worth speaking of. The Bahujan Samaj Party's role in coming to the aid of the BJP when even a character like Chandrababu Naidu in the fullness of his crooked mind thought it prudent to declare his dissatisfaction, is of a piece with the strategy of the biggest Ambedkarite party in the country: to keep Mayawati in power at Lucknow is the substance of their Ambedkarism as of now. Poor Babasaheb must be turning over and over again in his grave. But the Vishwa Hindu Parishad is slowly beginning to articulate an explanation for adivasi participation in the violence that could be quite embarrassing for radical analysts. The VHP's office secretary at Godhra in the Panchmahals, who sits cross-legged on the floor with an ugly chopper hanging on the wall behind him, says it was (in effect, for he has not yet learnt to use the expression) class struggle. The economic relation between adivasis and Muslims in rural north Gujarat is of the kind that most of us have often deemed to be sufficient to justify a violent class struggle. Where the Muslims are farmers, as in Dahod district, the adivasis are labourers or sharecroppers working for them. Where the Muslims are rural traders and transporters, as in Sabarkantha district, the adivasis buy, sell and borrow money from them. It is beyond doubt that if the VHP had not been the instigator, and/or the victims had not been a community perceived as an injured minority at the national level, many of us would have interpreted the adivasi violence against Muslims in rural Gujarat as class struggle, and then the question would not have been why adivasis participated in the violence (we would have then called it struggle and not rioting) but why it died out without achieving much, etc. The Sangh parivar has some former leftists with it who will no doubt make an issue of this in the coming days. Have not instances of adivasi or Muslim tenants revolting against caste Hindu landowners been interpreted by radical analysts as ('objectively speaking') class struggles, even if they took a communal form? Will the analysis change merely because the upper caste Hindus are now egging on the adivasis, and the exploiter is a Muslim? Soon we will have some Swapan Dasgupta asking this question, and it is doubtful that any amount of dialectics will help us wriggle out. What is needed is not some novel sophistry, but a resolve to give up simplistic assumptions and simplistic modes of analysis, not for the sake of the VHP, but for the sake of a possible progress in human affairs. Let us come back to the hatred. The most sickening thing about the Sangh parivar is its absolute unreasonableness. Gujarat as a whole is infected with this characteristic now. It is the Muslims who suffered immeasurably in the carnage, but it is the Muslims who are now held to be the obstacle to the return of peace. And where there is Muslim, terrorist and Pakistan cannot be far behind. The triad Muslim-terrorist-Pakistan, with all its six permutations, quickly enters any discussion of when people of Gujarat expect normalcy to return. "Pakistan is sending men and money, and therefore there will be no peace" is the commonest view in the matter. The exact amount Pakistan is believed to have sent is mentioned: Rs 2 crore. Advani puts the official stamp of approval on this by talking in parliament almost from day one about Pakistan-sponsored terrorists entering the relief camps. (The home minister of India never had anything to say about what put the Muslims in the relief camps in the first place.) The Delhi police, who obligingly make arrests of Lashkar-e-Toiba militants at Lal Qila/Chandni Chowk whenever the government needs it, forthwith make a few arrests, and of course the dreaded 'jehadi' militants confess in no time that they indeed had planned to go to Gujarat to create mayhem. The novelty this time is that they are said to have got printed for themselves cards showing them as human rights activists! If this evident nonsense is an indication that the government wants put an end to human rights activism vis-a-vis Gujarat, that is a compliment it is paying to the only good thing that has happened after February 28: not only human rights groups as such, but every one concerned about human rights has been to Gujarat, and a considerable protest has been generated across the country. The mood of the unrepentant rulers of Gujarat and India - and Gujarati society in general - is that they are all set to fight Muslim terrorism ready to burst out from the refugee camps. The refugees themselves are more worried about when they will be able to get back and rebuild their lives. They have lost their dwellings, they have lost their household property, the traders among them have lost their tempos, trucks, and other articles of trade, and the farmers among them are worried about their land that is ready for being grabbed in the villages. In many places the assailants are openly saying that the victims will not be allowed to come back unless they shave their beards, discontinue the 'azaan', and promise that they will not insist on observing religious customs that the Hindus find annoying. In some places it was made clear that the refugees, if they wish to come back, will hereafter have to forswear any trade that will hurt the interests of the Hindu competitors. (This is what the RSS said at Bangalore some time ago, is it not? That the best guarantee for Muslims is the good will of the Hindus, purchased at whatever cost. Well, it is being implemented in Gujarat now.) Obscene slogans have been scribbled on the walls of idgahs, dargahs and masjids - where they have not been demolished, that is. At Khetbrahma, a taluka headquarters town in Sabarkantha district, the assailants who cleared the town of all Muslims, put up a notice with the ungrammatical threat: 'Muslim no allowed'. And in village after village one finds a welcome sign painted in ochre colour and signed Vishwa Hindu Parishad, reading: 'You are welcome to village such-and-such of district such-and-such of Gujarat Pradesh in Hindu Rashtra'. The Muslims have to walk back from the camps into such villages. But not only the rulers of the country and Gujarat but Gujarati society as a whole is prepared to see only terrorists and Pakistan agents in them. Blinded by hate, driven to self-validating propaganda by their sense of guilt, building an alibi in advance for the further and complete ghettoisation of the Muslims that is to come: it could be any and all of these reasons. But why talk only of Gujarat and Gujaratis? One startling revelation that Narendra Modi achieved with his criminal brazenness is that a very larger number of Hindus all over the country harbour an extraordinary hatred for Muslims. Gujarat is different only in degree. Until Narendra Modi called this hatred the revolt of the long-suffering Hindus, it was not thought fit to express it. Now that a lawfully elected head of government has said so and continues to head the government, it is no longer felt necessary to hide the hatred, and they are all speaking out. It is said by the post-structuralists that giving a thing a name is essential for making it an object of knowledge. It is also true that giving a wretched feeling a respectable name is essential for making it a subject of acceptable discourse and practice. That is Narendra Modi's great contribution to the demise of Indian civilisation. It was said after September 11 last year that the world will never be the same again. One of the many irreversible changes wrought by September 11 is that it has become civilised thereafter to hate Muslims, and to talk of Islam vs civilisation. February 28 this year borrows from that American achievement. If, after all, current history is the saga of civilisation pitted against Islam, slaughtering Muslims can only be a contribution to the cause of civilisation. It was left to Narendra Modi to realise this, and to signal to Hindus that they need no longer feel ashamed of their secret hatred for Muslims. That is why the Sangh parivar gang admires him next only to George Bush. We are asked to believe that Hindus have so become bitter only because secular-minded people have never understood the deep historical hurt Hindus are suffering from. One must confess to some scepticism. Hatred of one's neighbour does not require such deep historical causes. It is enough if the neighbour insists on being different and thereby offers himself as the cause of all one's frustrations and failures. The real sin of Muslims is just that: they insist on being different. I am talking here of the ordinary Muslim, and not the handful of maniacs who believe that all Muslims shall live only in Islamic regimes, and that divine state of affairs will be achieved with Kalashnikovs. And the real sin of the secular-minded people is that we say they have the right to be different. What other meaning can there be for the insistence that if the refugees wish to come back to the village, they must remove the beard, shut off the hateful azaan and not wear the skull cap? Sadly, it is these hate-filled minds that speak incessantly of the great tolerance of the Hindus. What is this great tolerance that cannot bear the only people who are really different? This country is being overtaken by small-minded and hate-filled men who are bluffing and blackmailing the country into accepting their perverse logic. It is true that those who stand for secularism and democracy have some soul-searching to do; not for their alleged indifference to the great Hindu sense of historical injury, but for having allowed these goons to occupy so much space in our society. ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ Contents : 1).Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal (page 1 -6) 2).Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik (page 6-7) 3).Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy (page 8-9) 4).Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani (page 10-12) 5).Poet Of The Reich By Anita Pratap (page 12 -13) 6).Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi (page 14-16) _________________________________________________________ 2.Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik _________________________________________________________ The next Lok Sabha elections could well be the key turning point in the struggle pertaining to the future of Indian democracy - whether it has one or not. SOME OF the wider strategic implications of the Gujarat pogrom and the latest bout of war-mongering (including nuclear brinkmanship by both India and Pakistan) over cross-border terrorism are now becoming clear. The moderate mask has been dropped and the Sangh has decided that an unequivocal Hindutva posture is its preferred route to achieving greater power and influence in the future. But this still leaves key issues open. First, we have to be clear not only about the immense danger that the Sangh represents to Indian democracy's future but also about the path it is most likely to take in order to fulfil its ambition of establishing a Hindu Rashtra. Then, we can try and assess the obstacles and difficulties facing it, explore what tactics the Sangh might adopt, so that forethought and challenge can stymie its effort at advancement. Though Hindutva ideologues often try and confuse matters by claiming that India is already a Hindu Rashtra, which in English translation means a "Hindu nation", they know that their model of Indian society, if it is to come about, requires the prior establishment of a Hindu state comfortably under Sangh control, which in coordination with the RSS, can then carry out the dramatic re-shaping of Indian society/polity demanded by a proper Hindu Rashtra. But there are only two routes to achieving or attempting to achieve such sufficiently strong state power - the electoral one of securing an absolute or near-absolute majority for the BJP in Parliament; or bypassing altogether the constitutional-electoral route and carrying out an authoritarian coup either of a military-police kind, or a civilian unconstitutional coup of the Emergency-type. Fascism in Germany and Italy combined the electoral and unconstitutional processes. A dominant but minority party comes to power in a coalition through elections but then overthrows all democratic-electoral restraints and establishes its authoritarian state. For a number of reasons, the BJP cannot do this (as evidenced by its period in power at the Centre since 1998), not least because of the profound regionalisation of Indian politics. Nor does it seem likely or possible for the BJP and the Sangh Parivar to repeat the Emergency-type coup as a minority party though dominant in a ruling coalition. The Congress, it should be remembered, was in 1975 already the majority party in the Lok Sabha when it took that measure. Moreover, once bitten twice shy. There is no way that the other parties or the Indian public would quietly accept a repeat of the imposition of Emergency-type rule. The only realistic route for the Sangh, therefore, is in trying to secure an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha elections or as close to it as possible. Here it is faced with an obvious dilemma. Given its static performances in the last two elections and the enduring strength of regional parties, there seems to be no escape from coalition rule whether it is led by the Congress or by the BJP at the Centre. The earlier strategic perspective of the Sangh (before Gujarat) seemed to be a more patient and longer term one. It was a kind of two-stage approach. For sometime to come, coalition rule at the Centre would be the norm and the Sangh should make sure the BJP remained at the hub of successive coalition Governments. This would help make it the "normal" party of national-level governance enhancing its credibility in ever widening circles of the electorate as well as giving it time to pursue a differentiated geographical strategy aimed at weakening all its rivals. So, a somewhat more aggressive Hindutva could be pursued in places where it was strong but a more cautious approach would be adopted, e.g., in the South, where it had yet to achieve a strong enough implantation. But Gujarat has shown that the dominant sections within the Sangh no longer have patience for such a strategy, one that is also uncertain and provides no guarantees for delivering the final desired outcome. The next Lok Sabha elections could well be the key turning point in the struggle pertaining to the future of Indian democracy - whether it has one or not. Obviously, the Sangh would like to get a sense of where it stands, and of its wider prospects, after the Gujarat Assembly elections which some believe can be called this October. If it retains power or does not fare badly then this will be read as a strong endorsement of the value of pursuing an aggressive Hindutva stance. But even were the BJP to fare badly, aggressive Hindutva is almost certainly still going to be seen as the only viable or preferable option for it to pursue elsewhere in the country. After all, so far nothing else has worked, with the BJP's inept record of State-level governance leading to today's situation where it is ruling only in Goa, Jharkhand and Gujarat. Thus, the key tactical tasks of the Sangh are what steps or measures it must take to create the circumstances that can polarise the next general elections into a referendum on the ideology of the Sangh and help it obtain enough support! Two approaches are likely to be combined. One could be to instigate communal violence and riots in other States. Furthermore, in the ideology of the Sangh, being anti-Muslim, anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan are all linked together. In fact, the constituency that can be tapped through anti-Pakistan sentiments is much wider than the constituencies available for the first two. Relations today between India and Pakistan are at a nadir. And the BJP has noted how its principal political opponent, the Congress, was effectively outflanked by the Government's resort to 'coercive diplomacy' over the issue of cross-border terrorism, and how it successfully brought around an otherwise secular constituency which in a time-honoured manner convinces itself that in regard to external 'security matters' the Government's policies somehow stand above the narrower party-ideological considerations of the BJP. Hence, the enduring political attraction of pushing anti-Pakistan jingoism through the creation of wartime or near-wartime tensions. True, the U.S. presence in the region does act as a dampener against waging a war or enacting the kind of 'limited' incursion as a response to a future act of cross-border terrorism that could then escalate into a military exchange between the two official armed forces. But it is not a guarantee that such an outbreak cannot happen in the future despite the current receding of war clouds. While winding down tensions between India and Pakistan is clearly a current priority, one must not allow the deeper meaning of what has happened in Gujarat to recede from public discourse and attention. It is not Pakistan or cross-border terrorism inspired by Islamist fundamentalist groups or the dilemmas in Kashmir (despite their seriousness) that poses the greatest danger. It is our home-grown version of religious-political fanaticism striving for ever greater power that poses the greatest threat to our very existence as a secular and democratic polity and society. ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ Contents : 1).Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal (page 1 -6) 2).Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik (page 6-7) 3).Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy (page 8-9) 4).Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani (page 10-12) 5).Poet Of The Reich By Anita Pratap (page 12 -13) 6).Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi (page 14-16) _________________________________________________________ 3.Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy _________________________________________________________ One of the first signs of a nation going dangerously downhill is when its political rhetoric turns to pre-packaged pop patriotism. It usually means that the nation is doing poorly on every other front. For that is exactly when its leaders switch off all the other more crucial debates and turn to issues of self-pride and nationhood. That is the simplest way, they believe, critics can be silenced and vote banks consolidated. Any vote bank. It does not really matter who they are, rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim, upper or lower caste, educated or illiterate, rural or urban people: we are all genetically programmed to stand upright and raise a salute the moment jana gana mana is switched on. Lest you misunderstand my concern, we are not the only nation that has pressed the panic button. Pakistan, next door, has done the same thing. In its own curious way. So has - for instance - Israel, for years now. Even the mighty USA is going the same way, chuffed up by its own sense of self importance. For every new Bhagat Singh to hit the screen, to celebrate our self-induced patriotic fervour as Indian troops stand in eyeball to eyeball confrontation with Pakistani troops across the border, there is an equal number of war movies coming out of Hollywood, celebrating the victory of good over evil. Ergo, the victory of the US armed forces over their enemies in different parts of the world. The truth is simple: Everyone, everywhere is looking for an enemy to fight. Terrorists, Maoists, Muslim fundamentalists. Everyone has his own pet ghoul. To fight. That is the critical verb. To fight. Not to defeat. Because the moment you defeat the enemy, you have a new problem on your hands - to find another enemy to replace the old one. After all, there are not too many popular ghouls around, on whom you can blame all the evils of your current state. It is also not an easy task to build up the rhetoric to such a flashpoint that it can take over the entire life of the nation and reduce all other important issues to rubble. The fact that we are only talking war, war and war today, even as our economic growth has ground to a halt, foreign investments have stopped coming in and the top investing nations of the world have already warned their nationals not to travel to India and Pakistan, means that the governments of both the nations have been amazingly successful in distracting the attention of their people away from the real issues that ought to worry them. Corruption, bankruptcy, communal violence, caste riots, the declining rupee, human rights violations, environmental degradation, the beggaring of tribals, suicides by farmers, vanishing jobs, the ruination of the dreams of our founding fathers are all on the backburner today. Poor governance, crumbling infrastructure, disappearing national wealth: no one has time to debate these issues anymore. All we are now chasing is the chimera of self-esteem by boasting that no one has the right to question us when we murder each other in broad daylight, no one has the right to seek answers from us for questions that we ask others at the drop of a hat. At the centre of every debate is the most stupid question of all: How patriotic are you? Every Indian is patriotic. Irrespective of his or her faith, community, caste, gender, upbringing, education. To question that patriotism is the most stupid and shameful thing any nation can do. It is also the most dangerous thing to do because you open up for discussion and debate, for the first time, an issue that has always been taken for granted. You sow seeds of doubt not only in the minds of those who begin to question the patriotism of others but also in the minds of those whose patriotism is being questioned. You begin the vicious circle of doubt and dilemma, cause and action. You open up windows of the mind that were - thank God - always shut till now. Who benefits from these silly Patriot Games? No one. Not even those who have launched the sport. For such games are always short-lived and unless you take swift advantage of the hype and hysteria they generate through a quick poll or a well-strategised political manoeuvre, the passion dies out as swiftly as it builds up and brings us back to the same sorry issues all over again. A few hundred young men die at the borders. A few hundred more get blown up by terrorists or in indiscriminate police action. But everything else returns to its normal mess. People once again start noticing the simple facts of life - that academic standards are falling, jobs have vanished, the hospitals are crammed, the savings of pensioners are yielding less and less returns, the banks have been robbed, the cities are crumbling, the protectors of our hearth and homes have turned into criminals. Hitler could not sustain his rhetoric for too long. Nor could Mussolini. How do you expect today's leaders, who are forever under the watchful eye of the global media, to keep up this charade for long? They have no option but to eventually revert back to doing those simple things that build a nation brick by brick. You cannot play these Patriot Games for too long. They are dangerous and entirely self-defeating in the long-run. Nations grow and become powerful not because they whip up a patriotic frenzy among their people. They grow and become powerful when they emerge economically strong, when they brave new political initiatives, defeat the conspiracy of those in power and find new and capable leaders to take them ahead. That is the problem with India. We are turning a blind eye to every opportunity before us. We are ignoring the compulsions of change. We are refusing to break through the obduracy of our past and seek the future that awaits us. We remain shackled to old ideas, obsolete dreams, the politics of the status quo. That is where we are losing out. That is why we are so desperate to go back into history and rediscover our sense of patriotism as it existed more than half a century back. Because we have no leaders we can respect today, we have to go back and find Bhagat Singh to fire our imagination. What we forget is that, in this age of Mammon, there are no real Bhagat Singhs. What you are looking at is Ajay Devgan or Bobby Deol or Sonu Sood or what have you - just another nautanki dressed up as your favourite hero of the day, playing to the same gallery, singing the same song, mera rang de basanti chola, and they will all vanish as soon as the lights are switched on in the dark cinema hall. These Bhagat Singhs are as phoney, as unreal as these silly Patriot Games that we are playing and all they are there for is to make some quick money for some clever entrepreneurs who recognise an opportunity when they see it. The truth is: as the thin dividing line between history and fiction, news and entertainment slowly disappears, we are all becoming victims of our own fantasies. Patriotism is just one of them. Atal Bihari Vajpayee is so dependent on the US that he wants President Bush to wave the green signal before India can hit at Pakistan. Did Israel wait for Bush's order to blast the Palestinians or to keep Arafat under house arrest for weeks? There is a steady erosion of people's trust in the government. Vajpayee created a piquant situation for the army - the soldiers had to be a silent spectator to the massacre of their children. ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ Contents : 1).Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal (page 1 -6) 2).Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik (page 6-7) 3).Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy (page 7-9) 4).Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani (page 10-12) 5).Poet Of The Reich By Anita Pratap (page 12 -13) 6).Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi (page 14-16) _________________________________________________________ 4.Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani _________________________________________________________ The latest alliance between BSP and BJP for sharing of power comes as one more nail in the coffin of the efforts towards social justice. It is not that this alliance is taking place for the first time; it is not that these parties do not know the agenda of each other, but despite that we find two polar opposites sharing power. BJP cornered due to Gujarat carnage is out to make use of new alliances and anyway it has been a major beneficiary of the alliances it has struck to hold power at the center. But what about the upholders of the values of Babasaheb Ambedkar, Rammanohar Lohia etc. what are they doing sitting in the lap of the Neo Brahminical party, which is the progeny of RSS; the vehicle for Hindu Rashtra? Can any party wedded to the interests of backward castes, Dalit-bahujans ally with a party whose hidden (now open) agenda is Hindu Rashtra? Whose avowed goal is to abolish democracy and the constitution in India? Today Dalit-bahujan are facing the major brunt of the adverse impact of globalization. The land reforms have long been forgotten. The anti-Dalit atrocities are aplenty. The carnages of the type of Laxamnpur Bathe are not much far behind. The plight of Dalit women is too painful to be recalled. Pain and misery all around in the outskirts of villages and the slums of cities where most of the dalits are huddled. After Independence the industrialization, especially of public sector gave a large space for the aspirations of dalits for social justice. The limited land reforms also changed the situation a bit. The reservation in jobs and educational institutions ensured that a positive attitude towards education is imbibed by the Dalit masses as a whole. By 1980s the situation started changing. The first indication of this came in the form of Anti-Dalit riots in Gujarat on the issue of reservation. The clever change in the target from Dalits to Muslims paid rich dividends to the upper caste class party; BJP and it cleverly manipulated the anti-Dalit aggression of upper caste/class into anti-Minorities tirade. This anti-Minority tirade served the purpose of distracting the attention from social affairs to the so called religious issues and to bring to a close, to a total halt, to the slow growing process of social transformation towards social and gender justice. The game was cleverly played by the upper caste formations. BJP started building social bridges to different sections of Hindu Samaj and kept co-opting sections of Dalits and OBCs. Section of Dalit-bahujan, which benefited from the reservations etc. was aping to the upper caste and adopting the upper caste mores. The Sanskritization process, adoption of upper caste culture by lower castes, was in full swing. Still large sections of the deprived were denied the fruits of democracy. Mandal commission, which aimed at alleviating the lot of Dalit-bahujan, was in the deep freeze till V.P.Singh brought it out as a political ploy to placate the clout of Devilal. The whole hell broke loose. The ascendant polarization of upper caste/class occurring around Ram Janmbhumi assumed a new aggressive tone after the Mandal. In the after math of Mandal the polarization got razor sharp with the response to Advanis clever Rath Yatra becoming more and more menacing. At one level BJP was caught in a pincer. If it supports Mandal in the real sense its vote bank of upper caste will not be able to be consolidate. If it rejects Mandal its cooption of Dalits will suffer a jolt. The clever ploy of Ram Temple lies here. It gave a message to the elite to come around BJP at the same time BJP paid lip sympathy to Mandal, and so it did leave its options of incorporating Dalit-Adivasis in its ambit open. By and by it went from strength to strength, riding on the chariot of Ram lalla. By this time the Dalit leadership was totally rudderless. Gone were the days of Ambedkars Independent Labor Party, gone were the days of Dada Saheb Giakwad launching a massive agitation for land rights. In hindsight one can recognize the wisdom of Babasaheb many times over. He not only took up the issues related to Dalit self respect (Chavdar Talao, Kalaram Temple, Manusmriti Dahan) but also focused on the material uplift of the dalits, Labor party, education and other facilities for them. In true mould of Babasahed, Dadasaheb went up to take up the land issues in a serious way. Further down one sees the serious attempt by Dalit Panther to give verbal expression to the thoughts and struggles of Dr. Ambedkar in the form of definition of Dalits as all the exploited and oppressed, taking it beyond the birth based definition. Unfortunately the challenge of Panthers could be co-opted by the system in no time. With the prominent leaders getting nominated on Govt. bodies and getting awards for their heart rending writings, many of them chose their mentors from different sections of ruling political parties and parted company to get lost in anonymity over a period of time. Deeply entrenched in the cushy positions and parroting the reservation mantra, the dalit movement broke in to as many pieces as was the number of leaders. These mentors were from Congress and BJP. The most striking example is that of the radical Namdeo Dhasal singing peens to Hindu Hriday Samrat (Balasaheb Thackeray). In this backdrop emergence of Kanshi Ram as a leader of Bahujans was a landmark. But marred by his underestimation of the threats of BJP-RSS, he thought this is just another Manuwadi party. His party could not and does not see that this is a Manuwadi party with a difference. It is qualitatively a different formation; it is the one, capable of abolishing the democratic space in the deepest possible sense. It is the one whos father RSS is totally opposed to the Indian conetitution. It is the one committed for Hindu Rashtra, the nationhood totally opposed to the interests of dalitbahujans. So while democracy means affirmative action and so the reservations for Dalits, the pioneers of Hindu Rashtra assert it is and injustice to the deserving Hindu children and their merit. While secularism means that minorities be protected and given protection to keep their identity for a period of time, the Gurus of Hindu Rashtra cry foul at this and raise the hue and cry of minority appeasement, projecting it as an injustice to Hindus. The aims and agenda of RSS-BJP are crystal clear without any ambiguity, Hindu Rashtra, a la the German Nation of Hitler. It is here that one has to see the decision of Kanshiram-Mayawati to ally with BJP and give support to its agenda, which is unfolding bit by bit. Now there are contrasting goals, on one hand to do away with democratic constitution, affirmative action for weaker sections of society, protective clauses for minorities and the like (BJP), and on other hand, a longing for social economic and gender justice, an absolute and non-negotiable need to preserve the Indian constitution, and to promote the Dalits and minorities. How can these go together? During last three years more than ever before Sangh Parivars different wings have been co-opting different social groups in its ambit. It is Dalits and adivasis who have become the storm troopers of the parivar. While those sitting in Keshav Baliram Hedgewar Bhavan (RSS head office) make the strategy, the section of dalitbahujan spill their and others blood to achieve RSS goals. While the parivar elite plan the roads to Hindu Rashtra, dalitbahujans dirty their hands to make these roads which have to be sprinkled with the blood of minorities and other weaker sections of society for curing of these constructions. BJP has been successfully using the ex-socialists and the opportunists of various hues (George Fernanades, Sharad Yadav), DMK, Mamatas, and Ajit Singhs etc for furtherance of the agenda of Hindu Rashtra. Kanshiram-Mayawati cannot be exception to the guiles of Parivar. They will be helping the Hindutva agenda in more ways than one. While castism was used by upper caste to keep the lower caste out of the gambit of social benefits of development, the low caste had to use this casteism to improve their own lot. The two are not the same. Todays elite politics looks down upon caste politics because it demands and tries to get concessions for the Children of Lesser Gods (we are all aware about the caste specific Gods which we have). The things are all messed up between the real politic and the long-term directions. We have no Ambedkar today, when he is so much needed, to steer clear of falling in the trap and lap of Hindu Rashtra politics. When disgusted and frustrated by the grip of Brahmanism, as an escape he chanted, Buddham Sharanma Gacchhami, today those who claim to be his followers are chanting Manu Sharanma Gacchhmai, same Manu to burn whose edicts Babasaheb burnt Manusmriti. (Writer works with EKTA, Committee for Communal Amity, Mumbai) _______________________________________________________________________ Contents : 1).Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal (page 1 -6) 2).Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik (page 6-7) 3).Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy (page 7-9) 4).Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani (page 10-12) 5).Poet Of The Reich By Anita Pratap (page 12 -13) 6).Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi (page 14-16) _________________________________________________________ 5. Poet Of The Reich Anita Pratap. _________________________________________________________ If the state is strong, Indian fascists can't go far. If not, the need is greater that we all come out against the hate agenda. It's terrific when a prime minister is a poet. It's terrible when a poet is the PM. And it's terrifying when a poet-prime minister indulges in doublespeak. He isn't confusing, he is scary. The contrary voices, words, emotions emanating from Vajpayee in Gujarat when he spoke to Muslim refugees and in Goa when he addressed BJP members is positively dangerous. It's dangerous because the nation can no longer trust him. He has given oxygen to fascist Hindutva, the same Hindutva that he recently said we should distance ourselves from. The most dangerous consequence of Vajpayee's Goa theatrics stems from his failure to do what even US president George Bush did so clearly and emphatically-draw a distinction between jehadis and ordinary Muslims. Moreover, Vajpayee tacitly condoned the use of state machinery to attack Muslims. India will pay a huge price for Vajpayee's sins-because Hindu fascists are already targeting ordinary Muslims exactly the way the Nazis went after the Jews. History repeats itself. The history of Germany in the 1920s and '30s is now repeating in India. What is alarming is from the '20s the votaries of Hindutva have been inspired by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Just to give a few examples: militarising society by emulating Italian fascist youth organisations like the Balilla and Avanguardisti, indoctrinating youths through propaganda and parades rather than educating them, propagating a doctrine of hatred and cultural superiority, using symbols of past greatness, fostering ultra-nationalism infused with religiosity, excluding religious or ethnic minorities from the nation concept, relegating women to an inferior position, supporting authoritarianism and a contempt for democracy. Hitler believed in organised violence to achieve his ends. He had sturmabteilungen (storm-troops) to defend his meetings, to disrupt the meetings of liberal democrats, socialists, communists and to terrorise domestic foes. The Hindutva brigade have their Bajrang Dal and Shiv Sainiks to storm assembly buildings, demolish mosques, disrupt Medha Patkar's or Lone's meetings, ransack shops selling Valentine cards, burn Pepsi trucks, vandalise M.F. Husain's paintings, attack journalists. Hitler also used the storm-troopers to persecute Jews, especially Jewish merchants. He Nazified the state apparatus, using it to exterminate six million Jews. Nothing justifies Godhra. Nothing justifies the riots either. The right reaction to Godhra would have been to quickly arrest and bring the perpetrators to justice. But the BJP has shown it will shamelessly use state power to pursue its communal-fascist goals. History also repeats within when it comes to Muslim-bashing. In attacking the minorities, the VHP, Shiv Sena and Bajrang Dal are pursuing a goal set by M.S. Golwalkar who supported Hitler's policies over the Jews. In '93, at the height of the Bombay riots, Bal Thackeray said if Muslims behave like the Jews in Germany, they deserve the same fate. In 1929, Veer Savarkar said the rights enjoyed by Muslims should depend on the magnanimity of the majority. Encore in Bangalore 73 years later. Indulging in a Goebbelsian disinformation campaign, the Hindutva clan consistently typecasts all Muslims as jehadis, violent bigots disloyal to India. To be fair to them, the Hindutva brigade is open about its motives and goals. The trouble is the secular liberals are in a state of denial. The Hindutva lobby said it would exercise the N-option. Nobody believed them till they went ahead and secretly exploded the bomb. They have declared their animus against Muslims-Bombay and now Gujarat prove they mean business. Gujarat was Hindutva's laboratory and now that they are confident of winning elections there, they will try to replicate the experiment in the rest of the country.To consolidate the Hindu vote, they will create a national psychosis. Chafing against the nda allies' restraining leash, the BJP is intent upon winning a majority on its own so that it can fulfil its Hindu Reich agenda. Their own hero Sardar Patel had accused the rss of spreading "communal poison" and in a letter to Golwalkar dated September 11, 1948, had grieved: "As a result of the poison, the country had to suffer the sacrifice of the incalculable life of Gandhiji." More tragedies will befall India if the bjp now aggressively pursues a communal agenda. Around the world, there will always be issues that neo-fascists can whip up to grab power. In Europe, immigrants are their current pet-hate. But in all western democracies, and especially in Germany, neo-Nazi groups are banned. The state cracks down on them promptly, nipping them in the bud. If the state is strong, Indian fascists can't go very far. If not, the need is greater for all secular liberals to stop being browbeaten and defensive and come out vigorously against their hate agenda. The ranks of the silent majority should also join in. Post-Gujarat saw some excellent writing, soul-searching, civic action and litigation by secular liberals. But they need to be visible and vocal on a sustained basis to put the "pseudo-patriots", as Julio Ribeiro scornfully labels them, on the defensive. Likewise, NGOS must propagate communal harmony as part of their mainstream work. Instead of launching into an anti-communal tirade, which is a negative message, they could emphasise the positive effects of peace, togetherness, good governance and rule of law. Secular liberals must be proactive to prevent India from skidding into an era of violence, intolerance, authoritarianism and economic slowdown that experts now derisively call the Hindutva rate of growth. The unalterable truth is that nowhere has fascism and ultra-nationalism worked-not in Germany, not in Italy, not in Sri Lanka. Such misguided policies have wreaked havoc for decades, bankrupting the nation and robbing the future of entire generations of both the minority and majority communities. That's the kind of history we don't want repeated in India. Along the way, some of us may have lost our dreams. But this is a nightmare worth fighting against. (The author can be contacted at post at anitapratap.com) ____________________________________________________________________________ _ Contents : 1).Reflections on 'Gujarat Pradesh' of 'Hindu Rashtra' By K Balagopal (page 1 -6) 2).Carving a path to Hindu rashtra By Achin Vanaik (page 6-7) 3).Patriotism goes pop Pritish Nandy (page 7-9) 4).Manu Sharanam Gachchhami : Implications of BSP-BJP Alliance - By Ram Puniyani (page 10-12) 5).Poet Of The Reich By Anita Pratap (page 12 -13) 6).Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi (page 14-16) _________________________________________________________ 6.Meaning Of Secularism P.R. Dubhashi _________________________________________________________ THE RECENT communal riots accompanied by events of arson, loot and murder in urban as well as rural Gujarat and rural areas of Haryana and Maharashtra have tarnished the image of Indian secularism and the reputation of Hinduism as a tolerant faith. The social climate is thoroughly vitiated and the atmosphere is surcharged with suspicion and hatred reminding of the pre-Partition days. The nation is at the edge of a precipice. To prevent the collage, the nation must withdraw its steps from the path it has been led to under the influence of misguided elements. What are needed are a deep national introspection and a sense of balance and direction. It is the responsibility of those who are at the helm of affairs in government and in political and social life to provide these. But listening to them on TV and elsewhere it seems they are indulging in divisive politics and mutual recrimination, oblivious of the national interest and the consequences of what they are saying and doing. In its recent conference at Bangalore, the RSS passed a resolution that the security of the minority community depends on the goodwill of the majority. The resolution was seen as an open threat to the minority though the spokesman of the RSS tried to explain that it was not meant to be so. The RSS should have realised that it was improper on their part to pass such a resolution. Security is the fundamental right of every citizen guaranteed by the Constitution. It is the responsibility of the state to preserve and protect this right, which does not depend on anybody's goodwill. Of course the minority community should have the goodwill of the majority but the reverse is also equally true. There should be a sense of mutual trust and cooperation among all the sections of society. Secularism has been one of the essential elements in the basic structure of our Constitution which lays down that 1) the state has no religion; 2) all citizens however have the fundamental right to follow and propagate their own religion; and 3) it is the duty of the state to protect life, liberty and property of all citizens, provide security to them and enable them to exercise their fundamental rights. The state will not discriminate between the citizens on the grounds of religion and language. A clear contradiction While our Constitution has been based on secularism or dharma nirapekshita, our society is steeped in religion. Observance of religious festivals and rituals is part of our day-to-day life. Religious feelings govern our mode of thinking. Thus there is a clear contradiction between the basic tenets of the Constitution and the character of our society. These get reflected in our politics and public administration, which often work in a manner contrary to what is envisaged in the Constitution. The latest example of this is the participation of an IAS officer of the PMO in the shila dan ceremony at Ayodhya. This might have calmed down a potentially explosive situation in Ayodhya but it was clearly inconsistent with what the Constitution envisages. This however is not the first or the only breach in the Constitutional provisions regarding secularism. The Representation of the People Act provides that appeals made on the grounds of religion to gather votes would be deemed to be a corrupt practice and would disqualify a candidate but this happens as a rule in all our elections. All political parties use religion to gather votes. This starts from the selection of the candidates taking into account the communal character of the constituency. Vote banks are systematically built on the basis of caste and religion and the very leaders who take advantage of these vote banks do so in the name of secularism. This has been the hypocrisy of our secular democracy. Iftar parties The caste and communal character of our politics inevitably enters in the conduct of public administration. While the Constitution envisages secularism in the sense of dharma nirapekshita, our politicians have conveniently interpreted it as sarv dharm samabhav. This has given free licence to our politicians holding high positions to freely participate in all religious functions with the official paraphernalia in attendance. Indira Gandhi started the practice of giving iftar parties for our Muslim brethren during Ramzan. Now political leaders vie with each other to throw such lavish parties at national and State capitals and the practice continues even in the regime of a BJP Prime Minister. Wide publicity is given in the media as to who attended these parties and what was served. It is forgotten that such politicisation of iftar is a sacrilege to a sacred religious practice much to the disgust of truly religious people. Moreover it creates a sense of discrimination. If iftar parties are given why not Diwali parties and Christmas parties? There are two consequences of this mixing up of religion, politics and public administration. First it has given prominence in public life to religious leaders like sants and mahants, imams and priests. They have started playing an active role in government's decision making. The interference of religious leaders in administrative matters can prove dangerous to our secular democracy. Secondly, religious practices and festivals have started making serious inroads into the safety and convenience of our public life. In Maharashtra only Ganapati festival was public. Now even a Navaratri festival has become a public observance. Pandals are erected on roads obstructing traffic. Loud music is played on public systems disturbing peace. Namaz gatherings spill over the roads and in retaliation maha araties are also similarly performed. The RSS and organisations of the Parivar have been constantly criticising the Congress rulers for their appeasement of the minority, specially the Muslims. They are saying that though Hindus are in majority they are being discriminated. They want the creation of Hindu Rashtra. They argue that their definition of Hindu is very wide. Whoever, irrespective of the religion to which he belongs, considers India as his janmbhumi, karmbhumi and pitrubhoomi is a Hindu. But if the minorities are not prepared to accept this argument how can Hindutva be imposed upon them? Such an attempt would only lead to alienation and disaffection. A sense of insecurity On deeper thinking it would appear that the demand for Hindu Rashtra arises out of a sense of insecurity, which some sections of Hindu society feel even though Hindus are in majority in this country. There are reasons for this. First, the Hindus were under the Muslim rulers for more than a thousand years. The Muslim invaders came through the Khyber Pass in the Northwest, ransacked the Hindu temples and built mosques on them and forcibly converted the Hindus. Even the Christians resorted to force for conversion of the Hindus as in Goa where the early Portuguese rulers ruthlessly resorted to 'inquisition' under the leadership of Saint Xavier. Some historians tried to reinterpret this history and now there is a movement in the reverse direction. Whatever be the past history, the Hindu zealots must realise that it is not the sign of wisdom to open the wounds of the past and take revenge for what are perceived as historical injustices. We have to live in the present and what is needed today is for all Indians to work together with mutual trust and cooperation as citizens of the Indian Republic. When there were attacks on the churches in Gujarat, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, expressed the need for a national debate on conversion since it was alleged that that was the reason for the attack. The Leftists and secularists attacked the Prime Minister for daring to make such a suggestion. But the Prime Minister's idea deserves consideration. It is true that the Constitution gives the right to pursue and propagate religion. But propagation is not synonymous with conversion especially under threat or through pecuniary attractions to the poor and the ignorant in the lower strata of society. It is therefore necessary to introduce a clarification in the Constitution that propagation cannot mean conversion. Though the Hindus are in majority in India, they are in minority in the world. Though India and Nepal are the only two countries with Hindu majority, there are a large number of Muslim and Christian countries in the world. More specifically there is a string of Muslim countries both on the west and the east of India - Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and the Arabian countries on the west and Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia on the east. India has rightly tried to establish good relations with the Muslim countries of the world. But when Bangladeshi Hindus keep on being pushed out while Muslims infiltrate into India in large numbers in search of livelihood and Pakistan indulges in cross-border terrorism for grabbing Kashmir on the ground that Muslims are in majority in the Valley, there is disquiet and a sense of insecurity amongst the Hindus in India. This gives rise to the tendency to support Hindu fundamentalism. But religious fundamentalism is not the solution. Indians must realise that Muslim fundamentalism in Pakistan has only led to violence and strife which pose a major threat to its peaceful existence. It has disturbed the political stability of that country and set back the clock of economic progress. We have to realise that religious tolerance has been the basic tenet of India's ancient civilisation and it is also the hallmark of the modern age of globalisation. We should not waste our time in religious discords but rather move ahead with the use of science and technology to make our lives better, richer and fuller. We should follow the footsteps of European nations, which have forgotten their enmities and wars over centuries and have come together as a single economic and political entity. ____________________________________________________________________________ _____ _________________________________________________________ Click below to experience Aishwarya Rai's beauty secrets. New International Lux Skincare - It's not just soap, It's skincare. http://www.luxskincare.com From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 16 22:22:50 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 01:52:50 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Bush's Titanic War On Terror In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Bush's Titanic War On Terror by Robert Fisk The Independent June 13, 2002 First it was to be a crusade. Then it became the "War for Civilization". Then the "War without End". Then the "War against Terror". And now- believe it or not--President Bush is promising us a "Titanic War on Terror". This gets weirder and weirder. What can come next? Given the latest Bush projections last week--"we know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us"--he must surely have an even more gargantuan cliche up his sleeve. Well, he must have known about the would-be Chicago "dirty" bomber--another little secret he didn't tell the American people about for a month. Until, of course, it served a purpose. We shall hear more about this strange episode--and I'll hazard a guess the story will change in the next few days and weeks. But what could be more titanic than the new and ominously named "Department for Homeland Security", with its 170,000 future employees and its $37.5bn (lbs26.6bn) budget? It will not, mark you, incorporate the rival CIA and FBI--already at each other's throats over the failure to prevent the crimes against humanity of 11 September--and will thus ensure that the intelligence battle will be triangular: between the CIA, the FBI and the boys from "Homeland Security". This, I suspect, will be the real titanic war. Because the intelligence men of the United States are not going to beat their real enemies like this. Theirs is a mission impossible, because they will not be allowed to do what any crime-fighting organization does to ensures success--to search for a motive for the crime. They are not going to be allowed to ask the "why" question. Only the "who" and "how". Because if this is a war against evil, against "people who hate democracy", then any attempt to discover the real reasons for this hatred of America--the deaths of tens of thousands of children in Iraq, perhaps, or the Israeli-Palestinian bloodbath, or the presence of thousands of US troops in Saudi Arabia--will touch far too sensitively upon US foreign policy, indeed upon the very relationships that bind America to the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, and to a raft of Arab dictators. Here's just one example of what I mean. New American "security" rules will force hundreds of thousands of Arabs and Muslims from certain countries to be fingerprinted, photographed and interrogated when they enter the US. This will apply, according to the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, to nearly all visitors from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Sudan, most of whom will not get visas at all. The list is not surprising. Iran and Iraq are part of Mr Bush's infantile "axis of evil". Syria is on the list, presumably because it supports Hamas' war against Israel. It is a political list, constructed around the Bush policy of good-versus-evil. But not a single citizen from Iran, Iraq, Syria or Sudan has been accused of plotting the atrocities of 11 September. The suicide-hijackers came principally from Saudi Arabia, with one from Egypt and another from Lebanon. The men whom the Moroccans have arrested- all supposedly linked to al-Qa'ida--are all Saudis. Yet Saudis--who comprised the vast majority of the September killers- are going to have no problems entering the US under the new security rules. In other words, men and women from the one country whose citizens the Americans have every reason to fear will be exempt from any fingerprinting, or photographing, or interrogation, when they arrive at JFK. Because, of course, Saudi Arabia is one of the good guys, a "friend of America", the land with the greatest oil reserves on earth. Egypt, too, will be exempt, since President Hosni Mubarak is a supporter of the "peace process". Thus America's new security rules are already being framed around Mr Bush's political fantasies rather than the reality of international crime. If this is a war between "the innocent and the guilty"--another Bush bon mot last week--then the land that bred the guilty will have no problems with the lads from the Department of Homeland Security or the US Department of Immigration. But why, for that matter, should any Arabs take Mr Bush seriously right now? The man who vowed to fight a "war without end" against "terror" told Israel to halt its West Bank operations in April--and then sat back while Mr Sharon continued those same operations for another month. On 4 April, Mr Bush demanded that Mr Sharon take "immediate action" to ease the Israeli siege of Palestinian towns; but, two months later, Mr Sharon--a "man of peace", according to Mr Bush--is still tightening those sieges. If Mr Sharon is not frightened of Mr Bush, why should Osama bin Laden be concerned? Last week's appeal by President Mubarak for a calendar for a Palestinian state produced, even by Mr Bush's absurd standards, an extraordinary illogicality. No doubt aware that he would be meeting Mr Sharon two days later, he replied: "We are not ready to lay down a specific calendar except for the fact that we've got to get started quickly, soon, so we can seize the moment." The Bush line therefore goes like this: this matter is so important that we've got to act urgently and with all haste--but not so important that we need bother about when to act. Mr Sharon, of course, doesn't want any such "calendar". Mr Sharon doesn't want a Palestinian state. So Mr Bush- at the one moment that he should have been showing resolve to his friends as well as his enemies--flunked again. After Mr Sharon turned up at the White House, Mr Bush derided the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, went along with Mr Sharon's refusal to talk to him and virtually dismissed the Middle East summit that the Palestinians and the world wants this summer but which Mr Sharon, of course, does not. In the meantime, as well as Mr Sharon, all of the men who claim to be fighting terror are using this lunatic "war" for their own purposes. The Egyptians, who allegedly warned the CIA about an attack in America before 11 September, have been busy passing a new law that will so restrict the work of non-governmental organizations that it will be almost impossible for human rights groups to work in Egypt. So no more reports of police torture. The Algerian military, widely believed to have had a hand in the dirty war mass killings of the past 10 years, have just been exercising with NATO ships in the Mediterranean. We'll be seeing more of this. It was almost inevitable, of course, that someone in America would be found to explain the difference between "good terrorists"--the ones we don't bomb, like the IRA, ETA or the old African National Congress--and those we should bomb. Sure enough, Michael Elliott turned up in Time magazine last week to tell us that "not all terrorists are alike". There are, he claimed, "political terrorists" who have "an identifiable goal" and "millenarian terrorists" who have no "political agenda", who "owe their allegiance to a higher authority in heaven". So there you have it. If they'll talk to the Americans, terrorists are OK. If they won't, well then it's everlasting war. So with this twisted morality, who really believes that "Homeland Security" is going to catch the bad guys before they strike again? My guess is that the "Titanic War on Terror" will follow its unsinkable namesake. And we all know what happened to that. -- Chat online anytime at AMSCHAT - www.amschat.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020617/28033561/attachment.html From surbhi52 at hotmail.com Sun Jun 16 22:29:28 2002 From: surbhi52 at hotmail.com (Surbhi Goel) Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 22:29:28 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: unsubscribe -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020616/e51da862/attachment.html From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Sun Jun 16 22:25:43 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 01:55:43 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Arundhati Roy on Non violence and fasting In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A dam in Bhopal has displaced adivasis who have not been given an alternative place to go. The issue must be decided before the area fills up. Meanwhile, lives may be lost due to the hunger strike that some of them are on. An appeal and an article by Arundhati Roy, sent by friend Shai Heredia in Bombay. beena ----- Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 04:55:08 +0530 Mailing-List: list bombaynet at yahoogroups.com; contact bombaynet- owner at yahoogroups.com Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 20:59:56 +0530 Subject: [bnet] Fw: SOS MAN DAM PLUS ARUNDHATI'S ARTICLE Reply-To: bombaynet at yahoogroups.com 2 people on fast are critical. pl. do not delay the pressure. love, pervin ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pervin Jehangir" To: Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 5:10 PM Subject: SOS MAN DAM PLUS ARUNDHATI'S ARTICLE Dear folks, On the 23rd day of fasting for the people affected by the Man Dam, the people sitting on fast have gone into hiding as police came to take them away witout any actual solution to the rehabilitation problem was arrived at.To-day , as a Press Conference was being addressed by Alok, I am told that 100 plus police to arrest all. So at the moment - all supporters are in jail and the people on fast are underground. Ramkuvar is now only 30 Kgs.The Ketone levels of the others too are high. PLEASE VERY URGENTLY PHONE DIGVIJAY SINGH, CHIEF MINISTER OF M.P. AND QUESTION HIM AS TO HOW PUTTING PEOPLE IN PRISON IS GOING TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF SUBMERGENCE WITHOUT REHABILITATION THIS MONSOON. REMEMBER THAT THE LAND HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED BUT THE GOVT SAYS IT HAS NO MONEY!!! THEY ARE AFRAID THAT THIS WILL SET A PRECEDENCE FOR THE OTHER DAMS THEY ARE INVOLVED IN AND ARE THEREFORE NOT MOVING IN THIS MATTER. GET AS MANY EMINENT PEOPLE AS POSS. TO ALSO CALL. I AM TOLD HE TAKES THESE CALLS PERSONALLY, FAX: 0755 -551781 / 540501 PH: 0755- 540361 /661502 /3/ 4 COUNTING ON U FOLKS. MAKE UR PRESENCE FELT. LOVE, PERVIN AHIMSA by Arundhati Roy Hindustan Times - June 12, 2002 While the rest of us are mesmerised by talk of war and terrorism and wars against terror, (can you go to war against a feeling?) in Madhya Pradesh a little life-raft has set sail into the wind. On a pavement in Bhopal, in an area called 'Tin Shed', a small group of people has embarked on a journey of faith and hope. There's nothing new in what they're doing. What's new is the climate they're doing it in. Today is the 23rd day of the indefinite hunger strike by four activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan. They have fasted two days longer than Gandhi did on any of his fasts during the freedom struggle. Their demands are more modest than his ever were. They are protesting against the Madhya Pradesh government's forcible eviction of more than a thousand adivasi families to make way for the Maan Dam. All they're asking is that the government of MP implement its own policy of providing land for land to those being displaced by the Maan Dam. There's no controversy here. The dam has been built. The displaced people must be resettled before the reservoir fills up in the monsoon and submerges their villages. The four activists on fast are: Vinod Patwa who was one of the 114,000 people displaced in 1990 by the Bargi Dam (which now, twelve years later, irrigates less land than it submerged). Mangat Verma who will be displaced by the Maheshwar Dam if it is ever completed. Chittaroopa Palit, who's been with the NBA for almost 15 years. And 22-year-old Ram Kunwar, the youngest and frailest of the activists. Hers is the first village that will be submerged when the waters rise in the Maan reservoir. In the weeks since she began her fast, Ram Kunwar has lost 9 kilos - almost a fourth of her original body weight. Unlike the other large dams like the Sardar Sarovar, Maheshwar and Indira Sagar, where the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of displaced people is simply not possible (except on paper, in court documents etc), in the case of Maan the total number of displaced people is about 6,000. People have even identified land that is available and could be bought and allotted to them by the government. And yet the government refuses. Instead it's busy distributing paltry cash compensation which is illegal and violates its own policy. It says quite openly that if it were to give in to the demands of the Maan 'oustees' (ie: if it implemented its own policy) it would set a precedent for the hundreds of thousands of people (most of them Dalits and adivasis) who are slated to be submerged (without rehabilitation) by the 29 other big dams planned in the Narmada Valley. And the state government's commitment to these projects remains absolute, regardless of the social and environmental costs. As Vinod, Mangat, Chittaroopa and Ram Kunwar gradually weaken, as their systems close down and the risk of irreversible organ failure and sudden death sets in, no government official has bothered to even pay them a visit. Let me tell you a secret - it's not all unwavering resolve and steely determination on the burning pavement under the pitiless sun at Tin Shed. The jokes about slimming and weight loss are becoming a little poignant now. There are tears of anger and frustration. There is trepidation and real fear. But underneath all that there's pure grit. What will happen to them? Will they just go down in the ledgers as 'the price of progress'? That phrase cleverly posits the whole argument as one between those who are pro-development versus those who are anti-development - and suggests the inevitability of the choice you have to make: pro-development, what else? It slyly suggests that movements like the NBA are antiquated and absurdly anti- electricity or anti-irrigation. This of course is nonsense. The NBA believes that Big Dams are obsolete. It believes there are more democratic, more local, more economically viable and environmentally sustainable ways of generating electricity and managing water systems. It is demanding more modernity, not less. It is demanding more democracy, not less. And look at what's happening instead. Even at the height of the war rhetoric, even as India and Pakistan threatened each other with nuclear annihilation, the question of reneging on the Indus Water Treaty between the two countries did not arise. Yet in Madhya Pradesh (the state whose chief minister boasts of being the messiah of Dalits and adivasis), the police and administration entered adivasi villages with dozers. They sealed handpumps, demolished school buildings and clearfelled trees in order to force people from their homes. They sealed handpumps. And so, the indefinite hunger-strike. Any government's condemnation of terrorism is only credible if it shows itself to be responsive to persistent, reasonable, closely argued, non-violent dissent. And yet, what's happening is just the opposite. The world over, non-violent resistance movements are being crushed and broken. If we do not respect and honour them, by default we privilege those who turn to violent means. Across the world when governments and the media lavish all their time, attention, funds, research, space, sophistication and seriousness on war talk and terrorism, then the message that goes out is disturbing and dangerous: If you seek to air and redress a public grievance, violence is more effective than non-violence. Unfortunately, if peaceful change is not given a chance, then violent change becomes inevitable. That violence will be (and already is) random, ugly and unpredictable. What's happening in Kashmir, the North-eastern states, Andhra Pradesh is all part of this process. Right now the Narmada Bachao Andolan is not just fighting Big Dams. It's fighting for the survival of India's greatest gift to the world: non-violent resistance. You could call it the Ahimsa Bachao Andolan. Over the years our government has shown nothing but contempt for the people of the Narmada valley. Contempt for their argument. Contempt for their movement. In the 21st century the connection between religious fascism, nuclear nationalism and the pauperisation of whole populations because of corporate globalisation is becoming impossible to ignore. While the Madhya Pradesh government has categorically said it has no land for the rehabilitation of displaced people, reports say that it is preparing the ground (pardon the pun) to make huge tracts of land available for corporate agriculture. Which in turn will set off another cycle of uprootment and impoverishment. Can we prevail on Mr Digvijay Singh - the secular, 'green' chief minister, the very public advocate of 'good governance', the right to information and decentralised water management systems - to substitute some of his PR with a real change in policy? If he did, he would go down in history as a man of vision and true political courage. If the Congress party wishes to be taken seriously as an alternative to the destructive Right-wing religious fundamentalists who have brought us to the threshold of ruin, it will have to do more than condemn communalism and participate in empty nationalist rhetoric. It will have to do more than lock up MLAs in five star resorts (a zoo would be cheaper, surely?) to prevent them from selling themselves to rival parties. It will have to do some real work and some real listening to the people it claims to represent. As for the rest of us, concerned citizens, peace activists, et al - it's not enough to sing songs about giving peace a chance. Doing everything we can to support movements like the Narmada Bachao Andolan is how we give peace a chance. This is the real war against terror. Go to Bhopal. Just ask for Tin Shed. From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Tue Jun 18 20:46:32 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 18 Jun 2002 15:16:32 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Truth about Iftikhar Gilani...from Kashmir Times Message-ID: <20020618151632.5230.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020618/e59070d2/attachment.pl From abirbazaz at rediffmail.com Tue Jun 18 20:46:52 2002 From: abirbazaz at rediffmail.com (abir bazaz) Date: 18 Jun 2002 15:16:52 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Truth about Iftikhar Gilani...from Kashmir Times Message-ID: <20020618151652.5733.qmail@webmail27.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020618/3ec69b66/attachment.pl From ravis at sarai.net Tue Jun 18 23:33:40 2002 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Tue, 18 Jun 2002 23:33:40 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Left wakes up (slowly) to free software Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20020618233319.02d350e8@mail.sarai.net> The issue of free software seems to have strangely passed the left in this country by.. This review came out in New Left Review (it was also posted in nettime), what was strange (but not surprising) was that NLR took so long to come to terms with such issues. For a long time the aging and (old-new) Left in the West looked at free software advocates as either as muddled libertarians, or confused anarchists. In that context this review of a biography of Richard Stallman is a welcome departure. Stallman, as some Delhi-based list readers will remember, spoke at Sarai on February of this year. New Left Review 15, May-June 2002 URL: http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR24907.shtml JULIAN STALLABRASS DIGITAL COMMONS The following passage appears very rarely in the copyright notice of a printed book: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. It is to be found on the opening page of a new biography of the free-software programmer and activist, Richard Stallman, and (as the epilogue recounts) the unusual arrangement under which it is published is due to his stern insistence. The notice means what it says: anyone is free to copy, change and disseminate the book, provided they obey a set of rules, of which the most important are (a) that they must reproduce invariant portions of the text, protecting the recognition of its author, and (b) that any modified or copied text be subject to the same GFD licence. Furthermore, from June 2002, Sam Williams plans to publish the biography on the web site www.faifzilla.org, where readers can help to improve the work, or create a personalized version . . . We realize there are many technical details in this story that may benefit from additional or refined information. As this book is released under the GFDL, we are accepting patches just like we would with any free software program. Accepted changes will be posted electronically and will eventually be incorporated into future printed versions of this work. As the book makes plain, Stallman is an extraordinary figurea programmer of surpassing skill, capable of matching the output of entire commercial teams with his spare, elegant code; and a tireless, principled and uncompromising activist who initiated and fostered the notion of a data commons. Stallman not only developed the conceptual details of what has become known as ‘copyleft’ (it is sometimes indicated with a reversed © symbol), creating public-ownership licences that cover software and documents, but he also laboured to produce the fundamental elements of a free-software operating system a no-cost alternative to Windows, Mac OS and the rest, which anyone could download and improve. It was Stallman who, in the eighties, initiated and led work on a free-software version of Unix, which he dubbed GNU (a typically recursive programmer’s joke, this, the initials standing for GNU’s Not Unix). The extraordinary ambition to realize such a system was finally achieved using elements of GNU alongside a kernel written as a stop-gap, originally by Linus Torvalds, and developed into the Linux system; which, thanks to the efforts of thousands of collaborators internationally, has become a threat to Microsoft’s monopoly. With his waist-length hair, flowing beard, brown polyester trousers and ill-matched T-shirts, Stallman himself is quite a contrast to Seattle’s Digital Godfather. Born in 1953 he was, according to his mother, devouring calculus textbooks by the age of seven. Educated in New York’s state schools, supplemented by Saturday sessions at the Columbia Honours Programme, he initially led the isolated existence of a mathematical wunderkind, reading science fiction and MAD magazine, alienated from the 1960s protest movements. Studying mathematics at Harvard, he found his way to the Artificial Intelligence laboratory at MIT, and moved there for his postgraduate work. (Though officially independent of the Institute now, Stallman still operates out of 545 Tech Square.) It was at the AI lab that Stallman came into his own. There he found a tight-knit, highly collaborative group of dedicated hackers who exchanged information freely, working within egalitarian and informal structures. Openness was central to their ethos, and was defended vigorously and practicallyby breaking into offices where terminals had been left idle behind locked doors, for instance. Stallman even fought against the use of passwords. In the 1970s these programmers would freely exchange and tailor pre-compiled source codes, improving and customizing them to suit their requirements. From the turn of the 1980s, as the use of computers spread and software became a valuable commodity, companies copyrighted their programs and withdrew the source codes from the public domain. For programmers like Stallman, this was an assault on what they most cared about, as material that they had worked on for years was snatched from their graspan act analogous to the enclosure of common land. Stallman swiftly arrived at a strong position opposing this development: he would not use software that he was not allowed to alter or give to others. Computer codes were not scarce in the way that material goods were. Stallman likened them to recipes: to prevent people from swapping them, or tinkering with them to suit their tastes, was authoritarian, morally wrong, and a pollution of once open and collaborative social relations. Stallman argues that while companies address the issue of software control only from the point of view of maximizing profits, the community of hackers has a quite different perspective: ‘What kind of rules make possible a good society that is good for the people in it?’. The idea of free software is not that programmers should make no money from their efforts indeed, fortunes have been made but that it is wrong that the commercial software market is set up solely to make as much money as possible for the companies that employ them. Free software has a number of advantages. It allows communities of users to alter code so that it evolves to become economical and bugless, and adapts to rapidly changing technologies. It allows those with specialist needs to restructure codes to meet their requirements. Given that programs have to run in conjunction with each other, it is important for those who work on them to be able to examine existing code, particularly that of operating systems indeed, many think that one of the ways in which Microsoft has maintained its dominance has been because its programmers working on, say, Office have privileged access to Windows code. Above all, free software allows access on the basis of need rather than ability to pay. These considerations, together with a revulsion at the greed and cynicism of the software giants, have attracted many people to the project. Effective communities offering advice and information have grown up to support users and programmers. The free exchange of software has led some commentators to compare the online gift economy with the ceremony of potlatch, in which people bestow extravagant presents, or even sacrifice goods, to raise their prestige. Yet there is a fundamental distinction between the two, since the copying and distribution of software is almost cost-free at least if one excludes the large initial outlay for a computer and networking facilities. If a programmer gives away the program that they have written, the expenditure involved is the time taken to write it any number of people can have a copy without the inventor being materially poorer. An ideological tussle has broken out in this field between idealists, represented by Stallman, who want software to be really free, and the pragmatists, who would rather not frighten the corporations. The term ‘free’, Eric Raymond argues in his book The Cathedral and the Bazaar, is associated with hostility to intellectual property rights even with communism. Instead, he prefers the ‘open source’ approach, which would replace such sour thoughts with ‘pragmatic tales, sweet to managers’ and investors’ ears, of higher reliability and lower cost and better features’. For Raymond, the system in which open-source software such as Linux is produced approximates to the ideal free-market condition, in which selfish agents maximize their own utility and thereby create a spontaneous, self-correcting order: programmers compete to make the most efficient code, and ‘the social milieu selects ruthlessly for competence’. While programmers may appear to be selflessly offering the gift of their work, their altruism masks the self-interested pursuit of prestige in the hacker community. In complete contrast, others have extolled the ‘communism’ of such an arrangement. Although free software is not explicitly mentioned, it does seem to be behind the argument of Hardt and Negri’s Empire that the new mode of computer-mediated production makes ‘cooperation completely immanent to the labour activity itself’. People need each other to create value, but these others are no longer necessarily provided by capital and its organizational powers. Rather, it is communities that produce and, as they do so, reproduce and redefine themselves; the outcome is no less than ‘the potential for a kind of spontaneous and elementary communism’. As Richard Barbrook pointed out in his controversial nettime posting, ‘Cyber Communism’, the situation is certainly one that Marx would have found familiar: the forces of production have come into conflict with the existing relations of production. The free-software economy combines elements associated with both communism and the free market, for goods are free, communities of developers altruistically support users, and openness and collaboration are essential to the continued functioning of the system. Money can be made but need not be, and the whole is protected and sustained by a hacked capitalist legal tool copyright. The result is a widening digital commons: Stallman’s General Public Licence uses copyright or left to lock software into communal ownership. Since all derivative versions must themselves be ‘copylefted’ (even those that carry only a tiny fragment of the original code) the commons grows, and free software spreads like a virus or, in the comment of a rattled Microsoft executive, like cancer. Elsewhere, a Microsoft vice-president has complained that the introduction of GPLs ‘fundamentally undermines the independent commercial-software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product’ rather than just the distribution costs. Asked about his wider political convictions, Stallman replies: I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom . . . Because the more well-known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn't say that free software is as important as they are. It’s the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them. In fact, a look at Stallman’s homepage, www.stallman.org, shows that he is trying to mobilize public opinion over a wide range of political issues. Beyond the ‘puddle’, though, Stallman’s ideas do have wider resonance. As music, films, images and texts have become digitized, lifted from their material substrata of plastic or paper, many of the considerations that apply to free software come to bear on them. The issue again is not just about copying but altering. In NLR 13, Sven Lütticken eloquently described the advantages of intellectual ‘theft’. Online, the challenges to copyright are considerable, as people swap files using peer-to-peer programs that sidestep centralized surveillance and control. This free exchange of cultural goods is pursued not simply for consumption but to provide material for active alteration most clearly so in music, where the sampling and mixing of diverse sources is common, but also in video, with ‘fan cuts’ of TV shows and films. Sometimes such appropriations are undertaken with subversive intent for instance, in the copying of official websites for satirical purposes, such as those sponsored by the group RTMark, at www.rtmark.com. In the world of on-line art, attempts to claim exclusive ownership of works or sites have often been met with the practical political act of hacking and illicit copying. Stallman himself distinguishes between what he calls functional works (software tools, manuals and reference guides, for example), scientific and historical works, and works of art; in his view, all should be freely copied and distributed, but the latter two should only be modifiable if their authors assent. Stallman, whose defence of free software is in essence a moral one, has no doubt that free distribution should apply equally to cultural goods: ‘The number of people who find Napster useful . . . tells me that the right to distribute copies not only on a neighbour-to-neighbour basis, but to the public at large, is essential and therefore may not be taken away’. In a now well-known formulation, Stallman says of free software: ‘Don’t think free as in free beer; think free as in free speech.’ Yet in fact much free software is actually costless, or very nearly so; likewise, swapped files containing music, pictures or video are extremely cheap to download. While to do so is often illegal under current copyright law, it is unclear whether the law could actually be enforced any more successfully in this area than it was over copying music to cassette tapes. Many of the advantages that work in favour of free software also apply to other goods particularly, but not solely, those in digital form. The argument about the efficiency that results from rapid peer review is of considerable importance. At www.foresight.org, K. Eric Drexler’s pioneering essay on the potential of hypertext points up the fact that conversation on paper develops slowly (certainly in academic circles), due to the time needed for review, resubmission, publication and distribution, and the same is true of any riposte that may be published. What is more, the final result remains unchangeable, and isolated from the comments it has provoked. Hypertext allows for rapid revision, collapses the time-scale involved in getting a response and can link all related texts together. Free copying, linking and alteration are essential to this process. With cultural works, the right to alter is a free speech issue, as becomes clear when artists are sued for tampering with images of Barbie, using company logos or even invoking company names. Corporations not only want to give their brands and images powerful cultural currency, but also to control their further use. To be unable to play with the image of Mickey Mouse or Ronald McDonald due to the threat of litigation is a fundamental form of cultural censorship. Equally, the copying and alteration of online art works by other artists has been very important to the development of much Net art theft being seen as a form of flattery. The ‘copyleft’ issue has major implications for the Left itself. Consider the example of NLR. Its on-line policy is to make all current political interventions, and a selection of articles from each issue, freely available at www.newleftreview.org, while electronic access to the entire contents of the journal is available only to subscribers. At the same time, the journal is protected by copyright and raises the money that it needs to be published at all from subscriptions, bookshop sales and reprint rights. Under the copyleft agreement, distribution of NLR material would be freely granted to all those who had a desire or need for it. Those who could afford the convenient and attractive packaging of the material that the physical magazine offers would still buy it, but those who needed the material without being able to afford the packaging would not be denied. Furthermore, documents could be annotated, updated, and placed alongside critiques (this can take place with convenience and speed on the Web, but need not be confined to the virtual sphere). As with free software, the ambition would be to foster a widening commons of writing and other cultural material, a sphere in which access is determined primarily by need and not price. In cases like this, would not the gamble offered by copyleft be that widening access, and the goodwill that it creates, increases rather than reduces income? Until nanobots labour over physical manufactured goods, free beer will not be on offer - though the artist and programmer Joshua Portway has remarked that Christ’s miracle with the loaves and fishes produced the first open-source sandwich. Yet free speech and a free culture protected by the very mechanisms put in place to restrict ownership and maximize profits can be. The ‘left’ in copyleft should be taken seriously, as a matter of expediency and principle. In this way, Stallman’s small puddle of freedom may become connected to an ocean -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020618/56b3abb8/attachment.html From announcements-request at sarai.net Wed Jun 19 09:55:07 2002 From: announcements-request at sarai.net (announcements-request at sarai.net) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 06:25:07 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Announcements digest, Vol 1 #64 - 2 msgs Message-ID: <200206190426.g5J4Q4Iv010739@mail.sarai.net> Send Announcements mailing list submissions to announcements at sarai.net To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to announcements-request at sarai.net You can reach the person managing the list at announcements-admin at sarai.net When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Announcements digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Real ZOO web site, welcome! ID<%^E^%> (Farmgirl15764) 2. Real ZOO web site, welcome! 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--__--__-- _______________________________________________ Announcements mailing list Announcements at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/announcements End of Announcements Digest From rustam at cseindia.org Wed Jun 19 13:02:55 2002 From: rustam at cseindia.org (rustam) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 13:02:55 +530 Subject: [Reader-list] Award for spectacular display of double standards in international trade Message-ID: <2E832685F@cseindia.org> EU tops the Double Standards League on World Trade Join Oxfam today in sending an urgent message to EU leaders in advance of their meeting next week in Seville. Click here to take action and for more information http://www.maketradefair.com/euaward and don't forget to forward this e-mail to your friends, family and colleagues. **************************************************************** * NOTE CHANGE IN OUR EMAIL ADDRESS: PLEASE NOTE IT AS FOLLOWS * **************************************************************** CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT ( CSE ) 41, TUGHLAKABAD INSTITUTIONAL AREA, NEW DELHI- 110 062 TELE: 608 1110, 608 1124 608 3394, 608 6399 FAX : 91-11-608 5879 VISIT US AT: http://www.cseindia.org Email: rustam at cseindia.org **************************************************************** From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Wed Jun 19 22:39:53 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 18:09:53 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Scary Report Message-ID: <20020619170953.2736.qmail@web8103.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, Read a scary report on the first page of the Indian Express today. Wanted to call this posting "worried fuckless" but didn't do so on account of being called racist, xenophobic, and a jerk to boot. The fact is that this report worries me fuckless. If what the report says is true, then senior respected academics needn't worry about protocols of decorum, on a List or wherever. The govt is making sure of it: that no body, I repeat no body, for whatever reason, however intended, well-meant or misplaced, for libertarian, Marxist, post-modernist, or feminist reasons, can say anything against fascists. "The Centre has asked all International Long Distance (ILD) providers to instal equipment that helps screen voice, data, fax and internet-related calls." When a newspaper run by Global Aeducated Indians (Yes, GAIs are not reducible to NRIs) carries a report like this, it means that the actual process began at least a year back (Its comfortable, and safe, to report it now). That worries me even fucking more. So, I want to know: exactly who and what has been under surveillance? This List has carried postings on the fact that surveillance of the citizen, especially the connected ones, has been going on for a while. May I know some more about this fact? Will you, dear all, pitch in and tell me? "...now service providers have been informed that monitoring equipment should meet the 'military grade standard' " Wow. That sounds like a major upgrading. The govt is putting the gun to the heads of service providers. Its putting a gun to my head. Must I acquiesce? Now I want to be even more obscene when I talk about fascists on this List. Can I be? "A Cabinet Secretariat note (dated May 28) lists the equipment and facilities service-providers have to adhere to for 'effective monitoring' from the 'national security point of view'. Officials claim that this is in line with 'a global trend' post-September 11 to monitor suspected terrorist activity" This List has very-well connected people on it. Will somebody on this List please post these details? I'd like to know exactly how I am being monitored, "effectively". What is the equipment being used? Who's supplying it? Who's is overlooking the process whereby this equipment is declared "adhered to"? A while ago, there was this attempt on this List to have a debate on Surveillance. At that time, the attempt,kind of, went limp. I believe that now is the time to not only share info on surveillance, but to actually play the game and tell your surveillers a thing or two. Can we talk surveillance, since the govt (as the report makes it very clear) is informing us (via this report) that it intends to track down every word you write to whoever around this world, it intends to do this whether or not you like it, the govt is just going to do it, bugger you, citizen? I apologise to respected committed senior academics for using the word "bugger". The govt can bugger me, but I can't use this word on this List. Post-modernism does strange things to us, doesn't it? "Other key players (apart from Bharti Telesonic, the private provider specifically mentioned in the report) who have got ILD licences include Data Access, Satyam and Reliance." I access this List via Data Access. This particular quote, which comes at he end of the report, makes it clear that Data Access must be busy upgrading its surveillance equipment so that it can catch "terrorists" in the interest of national security. The report has rendered me fuckless. "Fuckless" is a neologism. It doesn't mean that you are dysfunctional due to urban stress. It means that you are being rendered structurally dysfunctional. It means that you have been made systematically dysfunctional. The seduction of the word is now under the Gaze. Even a semiotic orgasm is now to be interpreted (in accordance with protocols of interpretation) by no less than the government. You can no longer even write what you want to, just for the fuck of it. Because you are going to be watched. Your words are going to be measured. They are going to be weighted, compared to a non-existant vocabulary of "national security". National Security is this huge, non-verifiable, non-graspable canopy of urgency that today enmeshes all of us. You can't put a question to it. You can't demand a document in which it is clearly, as a matter of policy, defined. It is a canopy in which every kind of insecurity can be swept into and be forgotten (GUjarat, for instance: since the war-mongering, have we read a single incisive piece on what's happening in Gujarat?). The discourse of national security rests on a single foundation: that it does not possess any foundation. This is what gives the discourse of national security its power: it does not take a position, but has the ability and the power to condemn other positions. The discourse of national security has learnt the lessons of post-modernism so well that it has overwhelmed the world today. Post-modernism at its best (at its most playful, at its most ambiguous, at its best invocation of relativist Pleasure, at its celebration of narrow Skepticism, at its suspicion of Grand Narratives while being the grandest narrative of them all) is, historically speaking, today, nothing but national security. National Security is a metaphor of the Global Aeducated Indian. It is his Mantra. Now the Gl;obal Aeducated Indian has transformed this Mantra into a reality. Doing surveillance is like doing GUjarat. Can be done, know that it will be condemned in moral terms, who is bothered? Let the moral condemnation go on. Let us get on with our agenda! This govt works like this. But can they be abused, obscenely? No! Not on this List! Now they are using technology against me. If I abuse fascists on this List in the future, senior respected academics needn't worry. The government will prehaps take care of me. Is there anybody on this List who is more "committed" than this government? I want to know. I want to know because whereas I can see what this govt is doing, I cannot see what this bunch of so-called committed people on this List are doing. At least one thing I can see: they are not interested in fighting this government. So much for their politics. pp --------------------------------- Don't miss Yahoo India's Coverage of 2002 FIFA World Cup -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020619/5ed28a86/attachment.html From prajaf at vsnl.com Thu Jun 20 10:11:50 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 10:11:50 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Palestine reporting Message-ID: <004301c21814$e18382a0$553fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Sorry to reply so late to Ravi Sundaram's comments on my posts to sarai reader list regarding Israel. I feel that posts on Israel to the sarai list are way too one sided largely equating everything Palestinian with "good" and everything Israeli with "evil." There may be many opinions on the Palestinian - Israeli issue, but the following facts have hit me hard. 1. There are more than 1 million Muslim Israeli *citizens*, most of them Arabs. 2. They are the only Arabs / Muslims in all of the Middle East who enjoy democratic rights and privileges. 3. They vote in free elections and are themselves elected to the Knesset. 4. Israel is a tiny island of democracy and "relative" freedom in a sea of dictatorships--many of them brutal and oppressive. We may critique Ariel Sharon's policies forever, but the fault lies on both sides. I don't see Palestinian suicide bombings as "a holy duty" as some mothers of future suicide bombers too (see "I hope to be a martyr," posted today). Israeli over reactions do not help. As Tom Friedman on the NYT said in an edit (Apr 3): [quote] "If Arab leaders have only the moral courage to draw lines around Israel's behavior, but no moral courage to decry the utterly corrupt and inept Palestinian leadership, or the depravity of suicide bombers in the name of Islam, then we're going nowhere. The other people who have not wanted to face facts are the feckless American Jewish leaders, fundamentalist Christians and neoconservatives who together have helped make it impossible for anyone in the U.S. administration to talk seriously about halting Israeli settlement-building without being accused of being anti-Israel. Their collaboration has helped prolong a colonial Israeli occupation that now threatens the entire Zionist enterprise. So there you have it. Either leaders of good will get together and acknowledge that Israel can't stay in the territories but can't just pick up and leave, without a U.S.-NATO force helping Palestinians oversee their state, or Osama wins - and the war of civilizations will be coming to a theater near you." [endquote] -yazad ----- Original Message ----- From: Ravi Sundaram To: Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 11:35 AM Subject: [Reader-list] Palestine reporting > In this list we have witnessed a strange phenomenon, regular right wing > support of Israel's murderous policies on the west bank by Yazad Jal. This > is quite out of sync with the other postings. Recently Yazad Jal posted a > piece from America's most far-right foundations - the Heritage Foundation. > Heritage is to the right of the Republican party and what we are seeing in > the US is the coming together of the Christian Right and the Israeli govt. > policy. A strange turn-around from the time in the 1930's most Jews and > Communists were slaughtered by the Nazis, seen as one constellation. This > is an open list and Yazad jal will continue to make these postings but this > is a response to his post claiming that the Jenin massacre was a fraud... > > Ravi Sundaram From prajaf at vsnl.com Thu Jun 20 10:12:17 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 10:12:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] A Martyr's Birthplace Message-ID: <004401c21814$e1bf0500$553fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Some remarkable photos. This photo of a mother helping her son dress up as a suicide bomber is very disturbing. http://digitalfilmmaker.net/gaza/gaza8.shtml A Martyr's Birthplace A Photo Essay by Maya Alleruzzo http://digitalfilmmaker.net/gaza/gaza1.shtml GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip May 15, 2002 -- Abu Ali, like many 12-year-olds living in Gaza, has dreams of eternity. But the Palestinian boy's hopes are rooted in a grim reality: "I hope to be a martyr," he said. "I hope when I get to 14 or 15 to explode myself." His mother, Om Muhammed, is eager to help her son, one of six children, accomplish his goal. She helps him tug on a toy suicide bomber costume in her living room as she serves mint tea to a visitor. The get-up is dauntingly convincing, but is harmlessly made of electrical tape, plywood and spare wire. Harmless for now, at least. "I encourage him, and he should do this," said the woman, the mother of six. "God gave him to me to defend our land. Palestinian women must have more and more children till we liberate our land. This is a holy duty for all Palestinian people." Little Ali, masked in a kaffiyeh and carrying a toy gun made of pipes, marched earlier today in a demostration marking Al Nakba or " the catastrophe," as Palestinians refer to the day Israel was founded in 1948. Given Abu Ali's start in life, his future might seem inevitable. Walking through the streets of Gaza City, one can see young boys playing with toy Kalashnikovs and slingshots beneath the walls painted with graffiti depicting masked Hamas fighters, grenades, exploding buses. Jobs in nearby Tel Aviv dried up for Palestinians from Gaza after the latest intifada began once peace talks broke down in 2000. The Israelis closed the border crossings in an attempt to stop the Palestinian suicide bombers from blowing up themselves and Israeli civilians on buses, in cafes, supermarkets and restaurants. But the bombers still make it through from other places. The killing and maiming of mostly innocent Israelis by these young Palestinians has only made life harder for the rest of the Palestinian people. Even for Gazans with local jobs, road closings often leave them sleeping at the Israeli checkpoints. Students from the south now sleep in tents at Al Aqsa University, lest they risk missing classes when the roads close. With no passports, Palestinians cannot travel. If jobs here are scarce, there is one man who is making enough to support his family. Twenty-four-year-old Bahaa Yassin paints most of the portraits of martyrs seen in the Gaza Strip. Before the intifada, he did a variety of artwork to support himself and his wife. Family portraits, shop signs, and the occasional martyr. Now, about 70 percent of his business comes from these large, loving tributes to the young fighters. Funeral marches are a citywide event. Young boys march -- usually five kilometers from the hospital to the graveyard -- alongside men shooting live rounds into the air. Hisham Zaqout, whose nephew Youssef, 15, was killed when he tried to infiltrate an Israeli settlement, say the well-wishers, posters and artistic tributes have helped ease the family's pain. "In Islam, sacrifice is the highest honor, " he says. "Youssef did this for all of us to be free." The irony of his words is that the continued bombings and Israeli responses to them only continues the cycle of violence and hopelessness that has led to a downward spiral in the lives of both the Israelis and Palestinians. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Maya Alleruzzo is a staff photojournalist at The Washington Times in Washington, D.C. She can be contacted at malleruzzo at WashingtonTimes.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020620/d02df8de/attachment.html From bea at nungu.com Thu Jun 20 11:24:20 2002 From: bea at nungu.com (:bea::) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 22:54:20 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] :::::::::::Surveillance::::::::::::::::::::::::: In-Reply-To: <200206200426.g5K4QIIv017933@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: pratap, nungu also worried:: but attempting to take some action::: nungu finds the scariest thing the idea of the subject becoming bearers of his/her own surveillance. proposal below has been funded by Rhizome.org and is currently being implemented. what can we do??????? [rhizomatic // decentralised // hyperpanoptic [Bogard] // pantopic [Novak] forms of 'hypercontrol' in infomatic societies The proposed project is partly an extension of an on going project about security, surveillance, transparency and capitalism in postmodern societies, implemented by nungu.com and sarai.net in delhi in december of last year [see sample works [mrs jeevam jham]] and partly a project in its own right. The project proposes an exploration of forms 'hypercontrol' present in societies infused with communication and information technology networks. Contemporary surveillance systems or forms of hypercontrol, unlike the centrally controlled and co-ordinated systems of earlier surveillance mechanisms, are constituted by loose, malleable and flowing sets of processes. The project proposes an examination of these processes through an investigation of the logic and aesthetics of telematic surveillance. Telematic surveillance, as information warfare, centres on the notion of deterrence and detection. Contemporary warfare is a battle of images and sounds, winning, a matter of maintaining sight of one¹s opponent. Similarly surveillance, in the realm of electronic environments, is to do with perpetual control over a distance, a Œknowing in advance¹. Telematic surveillance like Virilio¹s military inspired vision machine, is the Œautomation of perception¹. The race to see first, to anticipate, to know in advance, is evident from the increasing preoccupation with pre-emptive devices that depend on simulation rather than on records of what has happened or is happening. The power of this type of surveillance, however, is located in the searchable database, in the coupling of the synthetic image with the data bank, the inherent logic of which is also anticipatory, pre-emptive and preventative. Databases, automated classification by code, not only give rise to social sorting, risk profiling and social categorising, they Œoperate by abstracting human bodies from their territorial settings and separating them into a series of discrete flows.¹ Surveillance is no longer contained. It is everywhere. Hence, surveillance society. The capacity of the 'Web' to capture and control, to target and to trap, to manage and to manipulate is exemplified in database marketing, which works by division of consumers by social type and location. Online market databases track and record the consumer¹s patterns of purchase; and in so much as to predict is to control, also represent pre-emptive and controlling technologies. The increasingly automated mechanisms for social categorising represent a key means of reproducing and reinforcing social, economic, and cultural divisions in informational societies. Knowing in advance who is likely to buy local or imported goods, vote BJP or congress, is seen as the means of maintaining order, normalising populations, maximising efficiency. Consumer Surveillance thus leads to consumerism as form of maintenance of social order. In this Œhyperpanopticon¹ subjects are disciplined to participate [filling in forms // acquiring credit cards and so on], in such an acute way that their surveilled data comes to actually constitute them. In the same sense as the synthetic image, the real-time image, the representation of the real, becomes more real than that which it reproduces [Baudrillard¹s hyperreal], the data body becomes more real than its fleshy referent. We thus become bearers of our own surveillance, seduced into consensual conformity by the pleasures of consumption. Bentham's panopticon with its moral language of criminal justice is replaced by a language of profit and loss. Data-subjects interact with surveillance systems. The question this project aspires to ask is how far subjects collude with, negotiate, or resist practices that capture and process personal data? The project proposes to set up a number of CCTV cameras in the city of Delhi, linking them back to a URL. The interface will allow users to view the images in real time. Alongside the real time images, there will be a quick time movie or animated gif detailing bodily movements // facial expressions which could be seen as an indication of a potential crime commiter. The page will also be equipped with a searchable database to which the user may add information that they have acquired, maybe information of a local suspect or someone they have seen lurking in their colony, [Delhi is a city much delineated along security lines. Homes of the middle and upper classes are situated in colonies, guarded and gated from the outside world] or perhaps someone¹s information they have obtained online. The database will be filled by the artists with most wanted terrorist lists alongside information from personal homepages [courtesy of mrs jeevam jham ­ see sample works] and will contain categories the user must file his/her information under. These categories will mimic the somewhat banal and arbitrary classification employed by marketing companies but in a local context - skin colour: wheatish, caste: Punjabi. The interface will have a Œpanic button¹ for the consumer to press in the instance of recliner crime spotting. The panic button will link to the actual Delhi Police Website help centre, complete with its neighbourhood watch, servant verification scheme, and Œarms renewal form¹ links. The Œservice¹ of access to this page will be made available to consumers in the guise of a security company: ŒGau Security Services, Delhi¹ [again see mrs jeevam jham]. [Gau, sankrit for cows. The word for warfare in sanskrit means, literally translated, a desire for more cows!]. The price of this telematic surveillance service will include registration and login alongside allowing Gau Security Services to advertise on the users homepages, much as they do on mrs. jeevam jhams. In this way the users themselves are seduced once more into surrendering their personal data and the proliferation of the Œservice¹ is ensured. The project hopes to show how in respect of the city, how webs of simulated surveillance system become woven into the fabric of 'real' urban life, just as the 'real' landscapes of cities themselves become transformed into a realm of surveillant simulation. It hopes to examine reactions in a local context to forms of hypercontrol, at the same time instilling a much needed awareness of how such Œgovernmental technologies¹ function in a local, social and political context. By virtue of being located in a developing country, the project results will be fairly unpredictable as there is a much less defined concept of personal space. The wired indian, for the most part, views telematic surveillance, if at all, through an inherently uncritical lens. From bea at nungu.com Thu Jun 20 11:29:09 2002 From: bea at nungu.com (:bea::) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 22:59:09 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] ::::::::::::surveillance2:::::::: Message-ID: A fascinating and in my opinion very accurate text Time in the Shadows of Anonymity: Fighting Against Surveillance Cameras, Transparency, and Global Capitalism The widespread and rapidly increasing use of surveillance cameras for the purposes of "security" and law enforcement is not something that is taking place in isolation, on the margins of society, or as an after-thought, though many people seem to think so. Take, for example, New York Times architectural critic Herbert Meschamp, who writes in "Echoes of '68 on Columbia's Campus" (Sunday Arts & Leisure section for 24 October 1999) that the surveillance camera in Columbia University's new Lerner Hall "insinuates a sinister presence into the entire composition." Note that, for Meschamp, the "entire composition" -- an abstract space, designed by Bernard Tschumi, that is defined by sheer glass walls -- isn't "sinister" until the surveillance camera is added; and that the "sinister presence" is added by "insinuation," not by direct expression. The camera in Lerner Hall has, in Meschamp's words, "a symbolic as well as a practical function," but it seems that "ornamental" is closer to the architectural critic's meaning than "symbolic." Contrary to Mike Davis -- who writes in City of Quartz (1990) that "one observes an unprecedented tendency to merge urban design, architecture and the police apparatus into a single, comprehensive security effort" -- the camera for Meschamp is an add-on, something not really part of or essential to the composition itself. But, to us, the proliferation of surveillance cameras is directly connected to the very essence of capitalist society. Generalized video surveillance brings into visibility the sinister and repressive essence of spectacular capitalism. To prove our point -- and to advance and enrich the practical struggles of the Surveillance Camera Players -- we need to advance and elaborate upon a theory of surveillance, the foundation of which will be the concept of transparency. It is the demand for and imposition of transparency that unites the apparently isolated spectacle of video surveillance with the general capitalist spectacle. *** To advance a theory of transparency, one must, unfortunately, first clear the air of the stench of the widely and well-reviewed piece of shit entitled The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? (New York: Addison-Wesley 1998), which was written by David Brin, a science-fiction novelist and staunch defender of capitalism and the State. "When [capitalism] works, under just and impartial rules," Brin said in an on-line interview in 1998, "the free market rewards agility, hard work, and innovation, just as it punishes the stock prices of companies that make too many mistakes" [emphasis added]. As we've pointed out elsewhere, capitalism's "rules" are transparently unjust and totally "partial," and only work for the rich and powerful. Indeed, to speak of capitalism's "rules" at all is to ignore and deflect attention away from the essential irrationality of capitalism, especially of such fundamental capitalist institutions as the division of labor, bureaucracy, and commodity fetishism. As for the modern State, Brin takes a position quite similar to that taken in Reg Whitaker's peculiar book The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality. A weak government is not a guarantee of freedom [Brin says.] It is a guarantee of chaos that will be followed by tyranny. What we need is a strong government that is totally subject to scrutiny so that every mistake that they make will be pounced upon. Though we find ourselves in complete agreement with Brin's assessment of "a weak government," we find it appalling that anyone would prefer more poison to less, rather than no poison at all. Our position is that, if there is anything "we" the People need, it is the abolition of any external governing body, and the instauration of universal self-government, so that "scrutiny" of the actions of others is totally unnecessary and can be completely dispensed with. Typical of someone well-conditioned by capitalism and its State, Brin's attitude towards both the widespread use of surveillance cameras and the emergence (imposition) of "the transparent society" is utterly passive. Cameras are proliferating like locusts [Brin says, using a peculiarly Biblical metaphor]. In Britain they've tied in face-recognition systems to scan pedestrians in search of wanted criminals. Nothing you or I do will stop this. No law will prevent it. Banning the cameras will only drive this technology underground and ensure it's monopolized by some elite group. To prevent "monopolization," Brin would have us do nothing and allow surveillance technology to proliferate and be used by everyone against everyone else. "Nobody ever thinks of the reciprocal transparency solution to these problems and that's taking cameras and shining it back on them," Brin says, his metaphor suggesting that a surveillance camera -- apparently an active projector rather than a passive receptor of light -- "shines the light of truth" upon whomever it is focused. "The light of truth" will, in Brin's words, "force" the "gossips and patricians" to be "polite" and "courteous" -- force being the operative word here. We are going to have to learn something we knew in the old villages, and that's courtesy [Brin says]. For our own safety's sake. We aren't going to be able to hide anything. We'll be safe because our enemies won't be able to hide anything either. But does that make it pleasant if everybody knows everything? The only thing that will make it pleasant is if we grow up a bit. But "reciprocal transparency" -- using surveillance technologies to surveill the surveillants -- is no solution at all. Quite obviously, "reciprocal transparency" simply gives up on and denigrates the fight to defend and reiterate our constitutional rights to free speech and anonymity, and to protection from unreasonable searches of our persons. Furthermore, "reciprocal transparency" is clearly irrational and a doomed strategy: justified in the name of preventing the total surveillance of all by a small minority, "reciprocal transparency" inaugurates the total surveillance of all by all. The "solution" of "two-way transparency" or "omnidirectional surveillance" -- like the Cold War "solution" of mutually assured destruction -- is in fact the generalization of the problem (the war of all against all) to the point of universal crisis. There is and will be nothing "safe" or "pleasant" about the transparent society, that is, the universal destruction of the rights to privacy, anonymity and free assembly: it will be nothing other than the mass murder of social life. *** Not surprisingly, Brin doesn't offer a clear definition of "the transparent." Starting fresh, we take "transparent" to mean the following: 1) pervious solid objects that do not scatter light or prevent its direct transmittal; 2) people or statements that are without deceit or pretense; 3) behavior or speech whose hidden intention or nature is obvious and easily detected, despite deceit or pretense; and 4) behavior or speech whose meaning is clear and easily understood. That is to say, "transparency" is a physical property of certain objects, as well as a metaphor for a jumble of conflicting human qualities or behaviors (honesty, bad lying, and clarity or "rationality"). Quite obviously, context of usage will determine a lot: there can be honesty (clarity of intention) without clarity of expression; clarity of expression without clarity of intention; and lying (opacity of intention) without detection (clarity of perception). But, in all this, there is the underlying assumption that neither obscurity nor opacity is to be trusted, even if they are in fact not "hiding something bad"; "hiding" is "bad" in and of itself. In other words, directly transmitted light (or meaning) is bright, clear and "truthful," and "darkness" (obscurity or opacity) is dull, stupid and "false." Let us call this underlying assumption the ideology of transparency. We should note that, like (pure) silence, (pure) transparency -- or pure, unscattered light -- does not exist. There are in fact only relative degrees of transparency: every object, even air or clear glass, scatters a little light or prevents some of its direct transmittal. Thus, part of the ideology of transparency is the denial of its relativity, and the irrational belief in and insistence upon absolute transparency. The relevance of the ideology of transparency to the use of surveillance cameras is easy to see: figuratively speaking, the cameras render transparent any and all walls and other obstacles that stand between the surveillant and the space he or she wishes to surveill (which we define as "observe continuously for the purposes of direction, supervision and control"). There is a clear, though metaphorical, "sight-line" between the hidden surveillant and his or her target. The most-advanced surveillance cameras can literally "see through" and render transparent heavy rain, darkness and such opaque solid objects as clothing. Thus, both literally and figuratively speaking, surveillance cameras intend to make everything not only "visible" but transparent, as well. If you are not transparent -- if you are clearly doing something unfamiliar and "unpredictable," if you are transparently hiding from or doing something obscure or opaque in front of a surveillance camera -- you are immediately suspicious, even guilty, of non-compliance. Ultimately, surveillance cameras are designed to render transparent to the surveillant's eye the purposes behind and meanings of every physical movement, indeed, the very thoughts in someone's head: are these law-abiding thoughts? or are they the thoughts of someone who is about to break the law or who has already broken the law? *** Here George Orwell's nightmarish 1984 remains relevant, 50 years after its publication. For Orwell dreamed that Big Brother would rule using a combination of three very modern techniques: video surveillance (the "Telescreen"), physical coercion ("Room 101"), and both detectable and undetectable mind-control. (We all remember The Thought Police and the illegalization of "thought-crime," but we all too easily forget that, as O'Brien tells Winston, seven years before Winston "first" committed thought-crime, O'Brien planted in his mind -- without Winston's knowing it -- the phrase "We will meet in the place where there is no darkness"). Except for the architecture of the city (see below), Orwell envisioned transparency being imposed at all levels: the walls of the room that Winston rents from the old shop-keeper are transparent to the gaze of the (hidden) Telescreen, and Winston's suppressed fear of rats is transparent to O'Brien, who uses it against Winston in Room 101. There is "no darkness" anywhere in Big Brother's Oceania; it has been banned and forcibly removed in advance. In our society, there is "no darkness" -- or, rather, there is "less darkness" -- in part because the mass of people have been conditioned to "voluntarily" make themselves transparent to the gaze of all. As demonstrated by certain works by Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, the Catholic Church (specifically, the institution of confession, which has become generalized through-out "Christian" culture), and "reality-based" televisions shows, respectively, inculcate and reward the adoption and internalization of the notions that it is both moral and healthy to routinely render oneself transparent (to either the eyes of God or the eyes of the camera). No one should be "hiding something," no matter what it is. Everything must be publicly confessed, no matter how banal or reprehensible. There is something suspicious -- something morally offensive -- about people who, in David Brin's words, refuse to stop "cowering in the cool shadows offered by city life, " people who will neither become completely invisible nor stop being obscure and opaque. In this regard, there is substantial interest in the content (and not just in the form) of "reality-based" television. Under-rated as a TV critic, Jean Baudrillard long ago pointed to the emergence of transparency -- he preferred to call it "simulation" -- in the 1970s reality-based television show that documented the wrenching everyday life of the Loudes, a "real family." Explicitly arguing against Orwell's foregrounding of physical coercion and his assumption that Big Brother's gaze would be resisted by deceit, evasion, and stealth (symbolized by Winston's secret diary), Baudrillard insisted that the masses were actually people like the Loudes, who needed no coercing, didn't resist, kept no secrets, and were in fact quite willing to be surveilled round-the-clock and have their private lives made transparent to the voyeuristic eyes of the entire TV-watching world. To control the masses, Baudrillard argued, the State no longer needed either surveillance cameras (the Telescreen) or the spectacle (as the term was used by Guy Debord and other members of the Situationist International to designate a form of capitalist society in which material wealth has become so accumulated and concentrated that the ruling classes, in order to divert attention from the necessity of a social revolution in keeping with society's new wealth, waste some of that surplus wealth in "spectacular" ritualized public displays of participation). To Baudrillard's eyes, the masses had internalized the functions of both surveillance camera and spectacular monitor: the two merged into a single simulacrum of reality, a "hyper-reality." Baudrillard's 1970s work reminds us of a very important insight, one that is similar to the central insight of Wilhelm Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism: people want to be rendered transparent ("famous"), even if they realize that it isn't in their best interests. The problem is not intellectual befuddlement or "false consciousness," but repressed desire and biologically-grounded authoritarian character-structures. But Baudrillard was wrong about surveillance cameras and ritualized spectacle, both of which have remained necessary as forms of State control of society. Indeed, these two tools of power have become ever-more relied upon since the 1970s. As Orwell understood, these two tools are closely related, a fact which in part accounts for their effectiveness. Surveillance cameras or the Telescreen (enforced transparency) accompany and balance the daily "Two Minutes Hate" broadcast (the spectacle of the transparency of Emmanuel Goldtstein's guilt). If they are not properly conditioned by the spectacle, people will not accept the imposition of transparency; without the imposition of transparency, people will not derive any satisfaction from spectacle. To briefly pursue a tangent: This does not mean that we are perfectly comfortable with the situationist concept of spectacle, despite our use of it in certain contexts. (The concept of spectacle was also elaborated by Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud.) As the situationists defined and identified it, the spectacle is (paradoxically) a giant obscurity, an immense blind spot or opacity. Despite its literal and figurative "visibility" -- its obsessive visualization (representation) of life -- the spectacle is essentially a mechanism of distraction, deception, diversion and dissimulation: Le monde n'est qu'abusion. Debord repeatedly likens the spectacle to Freud's dream-work in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899): So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity [Debord writes]. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep. [Emphasis added.] A pretense to a type of X-ray vision rules here. To the "interpreter" (Freud or Debord), the dream (individial or social) is, despite appearances, not opaque and is not lacking clarity of expression. The dream (or spectacle) is transparently the work of the unconscious (or political economy), and the content of the dream itself, again despite appearances, is transparent (it is a wish). There is no opacity or contradiction in the spectacle being both "bad dream" and "the guardian of . . . sleep" if you believe, as Freud did, that all dreams -- even or especially bad dreams -- are in fact wish-fulfillments, and that the primary wish that they all fulfill is the simple wish (the expression of the basic biological need) to continue sleeping. The problem here is that, while Freud's subject was actual (literal) sleep, Debord's "sleep" is metaphorical: in the spectacle, people are encouraged to act as if they are in a dream, though they are in fact wide awake, and need to be "woken up" to this fact. Thus, Debord has both inherited a problem from Freud (the one identified by Wilhelm Reich, i.e., Freud's concept of "wish-fulfillment" doesn't examine the socio-historical nature of the creation of wishes and the desire for their fulfillment), and caused one on his own (the metaphorization of sleep turns a deep psychology into a surface one that has no understanding of the biological function of dream-spectacles). Debord doesn't help us when it comes to answering this fundamental question: if the spectacle is "bad art," then why do people continue to find it biologically satisfying (and not just temporarily diverting)? To return to our point: because of the mirror-like relationship between surveillance and spectacle, "reality-based" (transparent) television hasn't simply grown in popularity since The Loudes: it has come to dominate and re-define television. "America's Funniest Home Videos," "MTV's Real World," "The Jerry Springer Show" and others far too numerous to name depend upon, not celebrities and professional actors, but ordinary people who are happy to expose their private lives to the global video confessional, even if they know that they are being ridiculed and laughed at. Such other popular "reality-based" television shows as "RealTV," "Cops," and the myriad versions of the "Caught on Tape" theme -- the opposite of shows about real events that use re-enactments as their content, and thus retain a degree of opacity -- have also completely dispensed with celebrities and actors, and rely exclusively on footage of ordinary people that has been recorded by either other "private" citizens or police departments. A carnival of constitutional-rights violations, these shows horrify and disgust everyone except those who irrationally fancy themselves to be better, more knowledgeable or smarter people because they, unlike those idiots who have been "caught" doing stupid things and are now being publicly displayed, know that everyone is being surveilled at all moments, and that "there is no more privacy." How do they know this? Because they themselves are the surveillants of themselves! Paradoxically, the desire to "participate" in the spectacle of "reality" -- an irrational desire born of a society that is based upon passivity, spectatorship and non-intervention -- is so strong that people are willing to destroy whatever human reality their lives had in order to become "famous." A growing number of people -- most notoriously American high school students -- commit spectacular crimes (murder/suicides) so as to appear on the news, "be famous" and thereby "participate" in the transparent reality of the spectacle -- when, tragically, it is in fact as impossible to "participate" in transparent reality as it is to breathe in a vacuum. You will readily understand why people will go to any lengths to get in the film to cover themselves with any old film scrap . . junky . . narcotics agent . . thief . . informer . . anything to avoid the hopeless dead-end horror of being just who and where you all are: dying animals on a doomed planet. -- William S. Burroughs, The Ticket That Exploded, 1962. Ironically, this rush to make oneself famous at any cost takes place within the same spectacular culture in which a great many celebrities are fighting to re-gain the personal privacy they gave away when they themselves became famous! The celebrities have realized something that the celebrity-wannabes are not psychologically prepared to understand: when you play a role on television or in the movies, that role -- that character's structure -- will be transparent (will have no psychological depth, will have a two-dimensional "clarity" and will be motivated by obsessions so narrow as to be completely unbelievable). This is especially true when it comes to "bad guys," the mentally ill, "perverts" and criminals of all kinds. On such very popular "reality-based" fictions as "LA Law," "Hill Street Blues," "Law & Order," and "NYPD Blue" -- note that few such fictions deviate from the theme of crime-and-punishment -- tautology rules. Mentally ill people do unexplainable things "because they are crazy" and "perverts" do unmentionable things "because they are sick." Police officers or district attorneys are obsessed to an unhealthy degree with prosecuting sex offenders because they themselves are victims of sexual abuse and want to "heal." Precisely because of their transparency, these utter failures of logic, psychological understanding and character development are good TV. As a result of being routinely, even systematically confused with the transparent roles that they play -- and finding that this confusion clearly reduces, distorts and even endangers their humanity -- celebrities now speak out against the very transparence (the systematic spectacularization of private life) that makes them successful as actors in the first place! The politicians, too: like the celebrities, whom they've been imitating since the early 1960s, the scandal-plagued politicians want exactly what the public doesn't want: privacy, time in the shadows of anonymity. Quite obviously, not every ordinary person wants to be visible to the point of becoming transparent. Indeed, a great many people both cherish their own privacy and are totally uninterested in the private lives of politicians and celebrities. Unfortunately, even if there are no surveillance cameras present and even if one is neither a confessor nor an exhibitionist, it is increasingly difficult to be opaque in our society. A great many people, even those who actively try to protect their privacy, routinely have their rights to privacy and anonymity violated by any number of parties that thrive on a constant input of data, information and intelligence (police investigators, credit bureaus, market-researchers, businesses, government agencies, secret services, industrial spies, reporters, voyeurs, curiosity-seekers, stalkers etc. etc.) The invention and proliferation of computers and computerized-networks have obviously exacerbated the problem, even brought it to the point of crisis. Every day newspapers carry accounts such as this one, which was published on 2 November 1999. WASHINGTON (AP) The company behind wildly popular software for listening to music on computers [RealNetworks Inc. of Seattle] is apologizing to consumers amid complaints that its program secretly collected details about the listening preferences of millions of its customers [...] More than 12 million people use the software, which puts it among the world's most popular programs for listening to CDs and digital music on the Internet. A security expert, Richard M. Smith of Brookline, Mass., found that the software secretly transmitted to the company's headquarters details about which music CDs each customer listens to and how many songs he copies, along with a serial number that could be used to identify him. RealNetworks insisted it never stored the information, which would have been lucrative for marketing purposes. "We made a mistake in not being clear enough to our users about what kinds of data was being generated and transmitted," said Rob Glaser, the company's chief executive. He said officials "deeply apologize." And so let us be as clear as we can: transparency is in fact rarely consensual, and is most often forcibly and secretly imposed. One only learns about its imposition when it is too late, and from people who add insult to serious injury (here, by claiming that they never stored the very valuable information that they risked so much to obtain). With these ideas in mind, let us now expand our discussion of the ideology of transparency to include its role in architecture, business law and world trade. *** A great deal of contemporary urban architecture (the Glass Court in Columbia's Lerner Hall, for example) has become similar in appearance to the automated teller-machine facilities at banks: full of transparent surfaces, mirrored surfaces and surveillance cameras. More than simply "forms in light" (as Le Corbusier defined them), contemporary office buildings -- which are almost invariably giant squares, rectangles or triangles made of steel frames and glass walls that can easily be seen through -- are now forms of light. Here, in the spectacularization of urban architecture, the ideology of transparency attains a concrete form. The literally transparent office building -- like the "open" gridded street plan that is designed to prevent opacity in the circulation of vehicles, people and commodities -- both signifies and embodies the transparency of capitalism's designs upon and domination of the entirety of human society, all of life, the very planet itself. The absence of opacity in such streets and buildings is meant to insist that (now) nothing stands in capitalism's way. Like X-rays (or the gaze of God), capitalism knows no limits: it can penetrate anywhere and can see everything. It is worth noting in this context that the surveilled city in We, the dystopian novel by Eugene Zamiatin upon which Orwell based 1984, is an abstract modern city made entirely of transparent glass. In 1984, by contrast, the architecture of the city hasn't been re-made to make possible and sustain the gaze of Big Brother: it has simply been allowed to age and deteriorate. Perhaps because Orwell himself knew war-time scarcity better than post-war prosperity, his novel doesn't include any hint that Big Brother might finally be successful enough to dispense with the pretense of the (phony) wars between Oceania and the two other super-powers, and use the "freed" resources to express his victory, raise the general standard of living, and "modernize" the city as a Panopticon. In New York City (a city famous for its glittering steel-and-glass office buildings), there are buildings that -- because they are built upon a handful of massive and totally exposed pillars -- appear to be floating above the ground rather than built upon it. Quite obviously, there are rhymes here between old-style vertical monopolies and old-style vertically-oriented buildings, and between new-style horizontal monopolies and new buildings that seem to hover over the ground. The hovering buildings -- some of which are also made of steel-and-glass -- take the ideology of materialized transparency to dizzying heights: capitalism has apparently finally succeeded in separating itself from the very earth, from earth-bound human society and its mundane concerns. Capitalism has become transparently visible everywhere and yet tied to no where in particular. It's very means of support (humanity) has become transparent to the point of invisibility. *** Transparency is one of the buzz-words among the international capitalist elite. In regards China, which is, to the Western mind, the most obscure, inscrutable and opaque country in the world, Daniel H. Rosen (member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Research Fellow at the Institute for International Economics, and the author of the 1999 book Behind the Open Door: Foreign Enterprises in the Chinese Marketplace), writes Greater transparency has been a consistent goal of [on-going] bilateral and multi-lateral negotiations [on trade], and in fact much progress has been made in this regard. By keeping regulations secret, authorities [in China] could implement them as flexibly or arbitrarily as they wished. Earlier investors were willing to come to China without having full access to the [Chinese] statutes. But as the economy matured, policymakers have become more concerned with a diminishing FIE [Foreign Investment Enterprise] inclination to invest without transparency. China has had to make its rules and regulations more public as a result [...] Transparency is clearly a prerequisite for predictability and compliance. Although relationships with high-powered leaders may temporarily substitute for the predictability provided by a sound, transparent legal regime, in the long term these leaders will be gone and a new generation of regulators will take their place. In this truly global vision, transparency is required at all levels: at the international level (that of the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank); at the national level (in this instance, China); and at the regional and local levels as well, because China, like all the other very populous countries (and China still has the biggest population by far), is actually a spectacular unification of autonomous regions, and therefore conflict-ridden. But different forms of transparency will not do: transparency means uniformity; the same transparency must exist at all levels for the illusion to work. The creation of a global totalitarian regime of transparency has been a long time in the making and is far from complete. As even Daniel H. Rosen must remind his readers, For 50 years, the international trade policy regime has been developed and refined, in order to bring freer trade and the accompanying economic benefits to nations. Its embodiment is the World Trade Organization (WTO), whose focus has been barriers to trade, such as tariffs, quotas, and arbitrary trade bans (e.g., those couched as spurious health concerns [sic]). The regime has been fairly successful at dealing with these impediments. Partly because tariffs are lower as a result of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and WTO, and partly because trade with less economically developed countries such as China has increased, attention is turning to the domestic analogue of the open international trade regime: domestic distribution rules, or competition policy. Ironically, although the belief that openness in international rules of trade produces rich rewards for everyone involved is almost universal [sic], openness in rules has barely taken hold domestically in many countries. From zamrooda at sarai.net Thu Jun 20 17:29:24 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Thu, 20 Jun 2002 17:29:24 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Notes from the court-2 Message-ID: <02062017292401.00837@legal.sarai.kit> If I close my eye and think of a court the images that will emerge.... fear, law, order, crowd, black and white,police, men in bondage, files. Reality check......tea stalls, vendors, typists, books, people: children all over, beggars, XEROX in bold letters, rajma chawal, fruit juice, PEPSI and COKE the war is not over. Meandering through the chaos of the parking lot I try and make some seance of this complex. Lessons in school taught me that a big industry attracts many smaller and ancillary units around it to supplement it. Never imagined the example will manifest itself in this scenario. The main building of Patiala House stands majestically in the centre of the complex. The royal gates at some point of time would have left the viewer awestuck are now lost in the maze of the hoarding. It will not be a surprise if one was to mistake this magnificent complex for a car park. Moving away from the chaos of the car park one is introduced to the canopy of the banyan tree. The tree traces its history back to the building of the court. An extension of the building the tree houses fifty to sixty typist. The air around is filled with the humming of the type writers. Applications for marriages under the Special Marriages Act have to be supported by personal affidavits. Attempts to trace the format for the affidavits met with the solution....contact the typist in the complex. They are well versed with the format and will complete it without a bother. The officials were not wrong. The typist with a maximum education of high school was well versed with the different formats for different kinds of affidavits. The only thing that one needs to be careful about is the grammar. The lanes of the court run like the veins in the body. With every visit, I discover a new one leading me to a new corner. I begin with B.M.Mehta chowk? Strategically positioned to the immediate right of the gate of the court. The chowk consists of lanes crowded with chambers of lawyers, advocates and notary. A casual walk through these lanes brings one eye to eye with lawyers outdoing one another to attract customers. One would not be exaggerating if one were to compare the scenario with that of a busy bazaar. The lanes are crowded with just enough space to walk in the direction of your nose. The chambers are even smaller. Yet a lawyer in possession of this 6 feet by 6 feet of space is revered as a successful professional. Accompanying the lawyers chambers in these lanes are the xerox shops. Fixed price of 50 paise. Lucky is the soul who is able to attain a legible black and white copy to his originals. There cannot be another place to study the shades of the colour black and white. Inventor of "recycle " will not be able to find a better use of this word. Another marvel which meets the eye is the speed at which a "man" can work at these machines. The machine may tire out but not the operator. Thrown in between these one may also come across a phone booth or and a lamination shop. B.M.Mehta Chowk spills over to the New Chambers Complex. The name connotes a recent addition to the complex. How recent is a good question to explore but the name stands firm. Leaving behind the chamber we enter into a jungle of book shops. The first time I came across this side of the court I was taken by surprise. Nothing had ever prepared me for what I witnessed here. In about a lane of ten shops there must not be a book on reference which is not available here. You name it and it is there. If not available the shopkeepers are more than willing to arrange it for you. There was something extraordinary about this. In which other profession have I seen books on the relevant topic available at the doorstep of the workplace? None that I could think of. This is the beginning of the end of the court complex. No not really. Once out in the back alley of the court one chances upon queue stuck to little gaps in the back wall of the complex. From henk at waag.org Fri Jun 21 15:02:13 2002 From: henk at waag.org (Henk) Date: 21 Jun 2002 11:32:13 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Censorship: Judge orders Indymedia NL to remove links to Radikal mirrors Message-ID: <1024651934.2967.11.camel@beheer> http://www.indymedia.nl/2002/06/4836.shtml Amsterdam, 20 june 2002 The court case, initiated by Deutsche Bahn (German Rail, DB) against Indymedia NL, has turned out negative for the latter organisation. Indymedia NL regrets the facts that the judge in the verdict does not elaborate on which kinds of links are permissible and which are not. This ruling will therefore have severe consequences for every person or organisation that has placed links on the Internet. Due to the structure of Internet, it is possible to reach any website on the internet, by way of combinations of links and indirect links. Deutsche Bahn insisted a couple of weeks ago that Indymedia NL should remove a number of indirect links of mirrors of the website of the periodical Radikal. Through the linked start page, numerous articles are available, including two articles concerning ways of blocking nuclear transports. These two articles have been ruled illegal in the Netherlands by the same judge on April 25th 2002. Indymedia NL refused to adhere to the demand. In the verdict of June 20th, the judge has ordered to remove the hyperlinks and to keep them removed, in as far as these hyperlinks lead to the Radikal articles, either directly or indirectly and notwithstanding whether these hyperlinks were placed by visitors. If Indymedia NL does not comply with this order, a penal sum of 5,000 Euros per day can be imposed. The judge ordered that, like an Internet Service Provider but just as much like the editors of a newspaper, Indymedia NL is, in principle, responsible for the content that has been published with its help. The verdict is surprising, since Indymedia NL does not link directly to illegal articles. Until now, only direct links to illegal material were forbidden in the Netherlands. Out of this verdict however, it follows that indirect links to illegal material are also forbidden, because Indymedia NL´s links only point to copies of the front page of the German periodical Radikal. It takes more clicks to reach the illegal articles. Indymedia NL considers the ruling a dramatic limitation of the possibilities of the Internet and the freedom of speech. Indymedia NL will probably try to appeal this decision out of principal considerations. For more information: http://www.indymedia.nl info at indymedia.nl From prajaf at vsnl.com Sat Jun 22 13:27:08 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 13:27:08 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bring Back Discrimination! Message-ID: <006301c219c2$add718e0$c43fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> Provocative and well thought out article -yazad http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer21.html Bring Back Discrimination! by Butler Shaffer Hardly a week goes by without a news report of such senseless acts as a kindergarten boy being charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate on the cheek; or a grade schooler disciplined for violating an anti-drug policy by offering a friend an over-the-counter cough drop; or young boys threatened by the state with "assault with a weapon" prosecution for using their fingers as make-believe guns to play cops-and-robbers. The latest contribution came from the criminal conviction of a teenager for shooting a "spitball" at a classmate, hitting him in the eye. Practices of this sort are usually defended, by school officials, as part of a "zero tolerance" policy for violence, or drug use, or sexual harassment. Unfortunately, what "zero tolerance" often comes down to in practice is an admission that "I am unable to think clearly and to make distinctions between an uninvited kiss and a violent assault, between a cough drop and a tablet of LSD, between boys pointing their gun-like fingers at one another and a full-blown knife fight." "Zero tolerance," in other words, becomes synonymous with "zero critical analysis." When I was a youngster, the attempted criminalization of such conduct would likely have been met with questions about the competency of school officials to supervise the learning of children. It would have been understood that the process of growing up involves experimentation and testing of the boundaries of appropriate social conduct. It was also accepted that learning how to establish suitable relationships with others came about through trial and error, and the feeling out of the expectations of one's peers, more so than having one's conduct constantly micromanaged by supervising adults. Only if conduct morphed over into the realm of viciousness was it thought appropriate to consider the transgression in criminal terms. The "spitballer" was given a six-day jail sentence - even though prosecutors reportedly sought an eight-year prison term; while the "cough-drop kid," the finger-pointing "gunman," and the "kindergarten kisser" may have to spend the rest of their lives acknowledging, to colleges or employers, their respective "offenses" of "drug-dealing," "attempted assault," and "sexual harassment." How does one satirize absurdity? The underlying cause of such nonsense is not to be found in either wickedness or a penchant for being overly-protective. I suspect that the school administrators who engage in such Draconian measures truly mean to do well by the children entrusted to their care. The problem, instead, can be traced to one of the underlying shortcomings of our culture - one for which, coincidentally, government schools have been the primary culprits - the ongoing war against discrimination. We must remember that most of the school officials who cannot distinguish between a pointed finger and a .38 caliber revolver are, themselves, products of government school training. There was a time when it was considered the highest compliment to tell another that he or she had a "discriminating" mind. Today, such is an accusation. One who learned to distinguish truth from fashion; to critically analyze a given set of events on the basis of intellectually sound criteria; to have both an empirical and rational basis for his or her opinions; to be able to separate fact from fallacy; to have one's mind well grounded in such fields of study as the sciences, history, economics, the classics, psychology, and the humanities; and, above all else, to have both a sense of humility about what we know and a recognition of the human need for transcendent experiences, that person was worthy of being called a "discriminating" individual. Not only are such qualities not developed in schools and colleges today, they are actively opposed. One who dares to suggest that the works of Shakespeare are superior to the folktales of some primitive tribe is likely to be charged with cultural chauvinism. To dissent from American foreign policy practices in the Middle East is to invite an accusation of "anti-Semitism" (even though truly discriminating minds would note that Arabs are also Semites). To challenge the legitimacy of welfare programs, "affirmative action," or any of a variety of other government policies, is to run the risk of being labeled a "racist" or peddler of "hate." Such absurdities helped to make up the world of "political correctness," a phrase that boils down to the failure of its practitioners to engage in discriminating thought. At this point, some may respond that I am only setting up a straw man to knock over; that racial, ethnic, and religious bigotry exist in our world, making discrimination a problem to be overcome. I disagree. The person who uses race as a determining factor in deciding who to hire or otherwise associate with is not, in most instances, discriminating, but failing to discriminate! "Discrimination" is closely tied to another misunderstood practice: "prejudice." Whenever we act, we do so on the basis of our prior experiences. We "prejudge," based upon the past events in our lives, what will occur in the future. Let us suppose that, while walking down a dark street one evening, I am mugged by a man wearing a purple hat. In the future, I might very well be fearful of men in purple hats, believing that there was some connection between hat color and my victimization. This is a common response of small children who, having once been frightened by a barking dog, might thereafter fear all dogs. But as I encounter more and more people wearing purple hats who do not assault me, I begin to modify the basis for my prejudgment (i.e., "prejudice") about purple-hatted people. In a word, I learn to discriminate, based upon factors more directly relevant to my being victimized, and may eventually come to the conclusion that purple-hattedness has nothing to do with the commission of violent acts. Focusing upon purple hats becomes a distraction to clear thinking. Our prejudices can serve us well or ill depending upon how proficient we become at making distinctions that help to further what we seek to accomplish. If, for instance, I would like to find a restaurant that sells pizzas, my past experiences lead me to prejudge that I am more likely to find pizza in an Italian than in a Szechuan restaurant. It may be the case that, in this city, the best pizza is made at a Szechuan restaurant, but information costs being greater than the benefits I might derive from trying to locate such a place, I content myself with an Italian eatery. When factors such as race, religion, or ethnicity enter into our decision-making, however, there seems to be an enhanced likelihood that such considerations will prove detrimental to our objectives. More often than not, prejudging others on such grounds will fail to predict for outcomes that we favor. The employer who refuses to hire a woman, or a black, to operate a punch press because of such criteria - rather than the applicant's demonstrated skill at handling the machine - will have to forego the added profitability from having the most competent people working for him. On the other hand, there are times when being prejudiced on the basis of race or other such factors is quite rational: I suspect that, when Spike Lee was casting for the Malcolm X film, neither Robert Redford nor Whoopi Goldberg were given the slightest consideration for the lead. Lee "discriminated" by casting Denzel Washington. Was Lee "prejudiced" in his decision? Of course: he "prejudged" that Denzel Washington would be a more believable Malcolm X - thus adding to the quality of the film - than would Robert Redford. He made a perfectly intelligent decision; he exhibited the qualities of a "discriminating" mind: he knew when race and gender were relevant factors in his decision-making. Racial and ethnic bigots, on the other hand, fail to make such relevant distinctions. In their minds, such factors become central to all forms of decision-making. Percaled Ku Klux Klansmen and the most ardent champions of "affirmative action" programs have this in common: for each, another person's race or ethnicity is a deciding characteristic. The quantity of melanin in one's skin determines whether a targeted individual will be brutalized or given a preference, depending upon the nature of the group making the decision. It is not that such people discriminate, but that they do not know how to discriminate! Nor is this problem confined to these more vulgar forms of expression. A friend of mine was a high-level executive for a major American corporation. One of their divisions was having major cost problems, and he was sent to find out what was wrong. His first act was to pull the personnel files on the top twenty or so executives in that division and discovered that each was a retired Naval officer. Upon further inquiry, he learned that the official in charge of hiring within that division was, himself, a retired Naval officer, and when he saw an applicant with such a background, that fact became the basis for his hiring decision. That there was no causal connection between being a Naval officer and a competent business executive led to employment policies that hindered corporate purposes. The catastrophic events of 9/11 provided what has thus far proven to be a missed opportunity for clear, discriminating thinking. Rather than treating the attack as a criminal act, President Bush and other government officials reacted with unfocused anger against a vaguely defined "enemy" who, upon closer inspection, became "anyone who's not with us" in a unilaterally declared "War on Terror." Without any evidence of Afghan involvement in the WTC attacks, the Bush Administration started bombing Afghanistan, and putting together lists of "enemies" and possible nuclear targets - whose identities were both interchangeable and subject to continuing amendment. A number of countries were identified as an "Axis of Evil," an appellation reflecting an unfamiliarity with basic geometry. Draconian police state measures were also announced that would greatly restrict individual liberties, but only for the duration of the "war" which was, of course, to go on forever! Those who suggested that the WTC attacks might have been in response to American foreign policies and military actions were lambasted by the boobeoise who, unable to distinguish between an explanation and a justification of events, accused such critics of defending the attacks! Bill Maher - host of the TV program, Politically Incorrect - offered one of his few genuinely "politically incorrect" observations when he noted similarities between "terrorist" and Air Force bombings. For his honest comments, he was pilloried by those whose inability to discriminate gets expressed in terms of distinctions without meaning. These are just a few examples of the consequences of abandoning the pursuit of critical thinking. Analysis and reasoning have given way to flag-waving, bumper-sticker slogans, and public opinion polls. If you are unable to assess the propriety of a given course of action, then ask other equally confused people what they think. Let us pool the ignorance! As the study of mob behavior informs us, when self-righteous rage suppresses intelligence, an unfocused mindlessness emerges. Collective insanity has a way of escalating quite rapidly. When top government officials in Washington can casually discuss "first strike" nuclear attacks against other nations, and warn dissenters to watch what they say, you can be assured that discriminating minds are not in charge. Perhaps intelligent thinking will begin to assert itself over the official madness that now prevails. There may be sufficient remnants of discriminating thought within the life force itself to impress upon even the most rabid of Washington warmongers that, no matter how horrific and inhumane the attacks of 9/11, they do not justify either a massive police state or a nuclear firestorm capable of obliterating all of humanity. Arthur Koestler suggested that mankind might have been an evolutionary mistake. A killer ape with a highly developed brain might not be a recipe for species longevity. That same brain, however, provides us the means to evaluate the nature of our behavior, and to make choices that either advance or diminish our lives. But how does one make choices without discriminating among alternatives? And if we are to make life-fulfilling choices, upon what grounds shall we discriminate? Do purple hats really matter? June 22, 2002 Butler Shaffer [mailto:bshaffer at swlaw.edu] teaches at the Southwestern University School of Law. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020622/742f00ae/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Sun Jun 23 04:05:15 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 23:35:15 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] :::::::::::Surveillance::::::::::::::::::::::::: In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020622223515.62712.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> Dear Bea, and all It seems, bea, that we are actually getting on to something we started a year back. Namely:surveillance At some point of time, we must look into the "informal" modes of surveillance by which a resident in a colony is "brought into line" with the "values" that apparently "inform" the ways by which that colony lives, and to which this "aberrant" resident must "conform". Looking at the history (utterly unwritten, merely experienced) of the way in which a colony that is electronically completely uninformed but which would like to be at the forefront of informed technology re-produces itself, it is amazing to find how the circuits of "gossip" perform their own version of "hypercontrol". "Gossip" does reduce individuals to "data-bodies" (in an a-electronic society not only struggling with post-modernism but also with modernism). It transforms individuals into data-bodies with an urge to stereotype. Therefore, one must look at the stereotypes that circulate through a colony, as an attempt to make it "one" (everybody must be the same -- salaried or landowning, respectful and populating, earning and tax-saving, investing and house-owning, owning cars, music systems or ghetto-blasters, washing machines or ghetto-dhobis, ACs or ghetto-climate changers, Fridges or ghetto-larders and the like, such as branded shirts and dresses). What scares me about the report I talked about is that, for the first time, it is being made official that the State is getting into the same business. Gossiping is a way of tracking down individual idiosnycrasies, personal paranoias. It is a way of informally informing everybody about everyone. It is a "small" politics of identity. Now the State wants to get into this circuit, thereby transforming a small politics of identity (a flexible politics, depending on who has watched and how s/he has talked about it, and what has been watched, how interpersonal boredoms have been elevated to the status of a narrative, how "goings-on" have been given a "story" and a "history", what local power of belief the narrator possesses) into a National Concern. I use the Capital letters deliberately. The State, via "military grade" technology, is doing the same kind of thing that gossips thrive on. The State wishes to get into the business of policing opinion. You know that the current government is a fascist government. They will not leave anything to chance. For the fascist state, apart from gleaning info about so-called "terrorists", it is important to find out the current state of opinion, and range of activities, on the Net. In terms of the report, the State has given itself the power to not only "check out" who's saying what, but also to bring the service-provider to book for allowing what is it that can be said. The State can now create a complete inventory of "those who belong and what they are saying" and "those who don't belong and what they are saying". For the present government, this is really important (for this is a government that is totally, at one level, into the business of ideology). Using its power, this State can actually presume to intervene into civil society, witha desire to corrupt it. Let us be clear about this: the current government has come into power via a corruption of civil society. The more it can corrupt civil society, the more successful it will be. The more it can close down civil society (understood here as a sphere of human existence and action that exists outside the State), the better it will succeed. Thus, outside of the logic that you have (as usually) so brilliantly described, bea, I feel that we really need to look into the historical development of the Indian State viv-a-vis the immanent "desire to watch" that this State seems to possess. The current government is one moment of the post-independent State in India. Are they carrying certain inherent powers (historically constitutionally provided) to an extreme? This Government believes in Gossip. It wishes to track down the field of Gossip that the Web makes possible. It wishes to possess an entire knowledge of who's saying what on the Net. This, it is doing, in the interest of National Security. For this, it wants "military grade" equipment. Tell me, Bea, and All, what is this equipment? What will it enable? Is it interpretative? Does it have in-built rules of decorum (anybodu who abuses is a terrorist?)? How can the State organise Text? I repeat: How can the State organise Text? How can the State possess knowledge of Text? Text belongs to civil society. How dare the State even presume to take over this domain? bea: : Thu Jun 20 11: 24: 20 at yahoo.com, UNEXPECTED_DATA_AFTER_ADDRESS_IN_GROUP at .SYNTAX-ERROR.;;;;, ":bea::" wrote: pratap, nungu also worried:: but attempting to take some action::: nungu finds the scariest thing the idea of the subject becoming bearers of his/her own surveillance. proposal below has been funded by Rhizome.org and is currently being implemented. what can we do??????? [rhizomatic // decentralised // hyperpanoptic [Bogard] // pantopic [Novak] forms of 'hypercontrol' in infomatic societies The proposed project is partly an extension of an on going project about security, surveillance, transparency and capitalism in postmodern societies, implemented by nungu.com and sarai.net in delhi in december of last year [see sample works [mrs jeevam jham]] and partly a project in its own right. The project proposes an exploration of forms 'hypercontrol' present in societies infused with communication and information technology networks. Contemporary surveillance systems or forms of hypercontrol, unlike the centrally controlled and co-ordinated systems of earlier surveillance mechanisms, are constituted by loose, malleable and flowing sets of processes. The project proposes an examination of these processes through an investigation of the logic and aesthetics of telematic surveillance. Telematic surveillance, as information warfare, centres on the notion of deterrence and detection. Contemporary warfare is a battle of images and sounds, winning, a matter of maintaining sight of one¹s opponent. Similarly surveillance, in the realm of electronic environments, is to do with perpetual control over a distance, a Œknowing in advance¹. Telematic surveillance like Virilio¹s military inspired vision machine, is the Œautomation of perception¹. The race to see first, to anticipate, to know in advance, is evident from the increasing preoccupation with pre-emptive devices that depend on simulation rather than on records of what has happened or is happening. The power of this type of surveillance, however, is located in the searchable database, in the coupling of the synthetic image with the data bank, the inherent logic of which is also anticipatory, pre-emptive and preventative. Databases, automated classification by code, not only give rise to social sorting, risk profiling and social categorising, they Œoperate by abstracting human bodies from their territorial settings and separating them into a series of discrete flows.¹ Surveillance is no longer contained. It is everywhere. Hence, surveillance society. The capacity of the 'Web' to capture and control, to target and to trap, to manage and to manipulate is exemplified in database marketing, which works by division of consumers by social type and location. Online market databases track and record the consumer¹s patterns of purchase; and in so much as to predict is to control, also represent pre-emptive and controlling technologies. The increasingly automated mechanisms for social categorising represent a key means of reproducing and reinforcing social, economic, and cultural divisions in informational societies. Knowing in advance who is likely to buy local or imported goods, vote BJP or congress, is seen as the means of maintaining order, normalising populations, maximising efficiency. Consumer Surveillance thus leads to consumerism as form of maintenance of social order. In this Œhyperpanopticon¹ subjects are disciplined to participate [filling in forms // acquiring credit cards and so on], in such an acute way that their surveilled data comes to actually constitute them. In the same sense as the synthetic image, the real-time image, the representation of the real, becomes more real than that which it reproduces [Baudrillard¹s hyperreal], the data body becomes more real than its fleshy referent. We thus become bearers of our own surveillance, seduced into consensual conformity by the pleasures of consumption. Bentham's panopticon with its moral language of criminal justice is replaced by a language of profit and loss. Data-subjects interact with surveillance systems. The question this project aspires to ask is how far subjects collude with, negotiate, or resist practices that capture and process personal data? The project proposes to set up a number of CCTV cameras in the city of Delhi, linking them back to a URL. The interface will allow users to view the images in real time. Alongside the real time images, there will be a quick time movie or animated gif detailing bodily movements // facial expressions which could be seen as an indication of a potential crime commiter. The page will also be equipped with a searchable database to which the user may add information that they have acquired, maybe information of a local suspect or someone they have seen lurking in their colony, [Delhi is a city much delineated along security lines. Homes of the middle and upper classes are situated in colonies, guarded and gated from the outside world] or perhaps someone¹s information they have obtained online. The database will be filled by the artists with most wanted terrorist lists alongside information from personal homepages [courtesy of mrs jeevam jham ­ see sample works] and will contain categories the user must file his/her information under. These categories will mimic the somewhat banal and arbitrary classification employed by marketing companies but in a local context - skin colour: wheatish, caste: Punjabi. The interface will have a Œpanic button¹ for the consumer to press in the instance of recliner crime spotting. The panic button will link to the actual Delhi Police Website help centre, complete with its neighbourhood watch, servant verification scheme, and Œarms renewal form¹ links. The Œservice¹ of access to this page will be made available to consumers in the guise of a security company: ŒGau Security Services, Delhi¹ [again see mrs jeevam jham]. [Gau, sankrit for cows. The word for warfare in sanskrit means, literally translated, a desire for more cows!]. The price of this telematic surveillance service will include registration and login alongside allowing Gau Security Services to advertise on the users homepages, much as they do on mrs. jeevam jhams. In this way the users themselves are seduced once more into surrendering their personal data and the proliferation of the Œservice¹ is ensured. The project hopes to show how in respect of the city, how webs of simulated surveillance system become woven into the fabric of 'real' urban life, just as the 'real' landscapes of cities themselves become transformed into a realm of surveillant simulation. It hopes to examine reactions in a local context to forms of hypercontrol, at the same time instilling a much needed awareness of how such Œgovernmental technologies¹ function in a local, social and political context. By virtue of being located in a developing country, the project results will be fairly unpredictable as there is a much less defined concept of personal space. The wired indian, for the most part, views telematic surveillance, if at all, through an inherently uncritical lens. _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020622/63ff0248/attachment.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Sun Jun 23 04:32:08 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 00:02:08 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] ::::::::::::surveillance2:::::::: In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020622230208.36271.qmail@web8103.in.yahoo.com> Dear All, and Bea, How is it possible for me to know what kind of technology is being deployed against me? The Indian Express report ( to which I am fucking stuck) talks about a list that has been handed out to ILD providers. I ask again: will somebody tell me what this List (which is about upgrading surveillance technology to "military grade") is all about? Come on! Are we so helpless on this List that we dare not publish this bit of repressive information, this bit that will clarify to me exactly how my words are being watched? I want to know the details of the technology that the government wants deployed. Somebody on this List knows it! Pass on the info, yaar! Let me come clean. It is the ethical task of all us members on this List to source out, find out, and bring to the public domain this inormation. Are we scared, or up to it? bea: : Thu Jun 20 11: 29: 09 at yahoo.com, UNEXPECTED_DATA_AFTER_ADDRESS_IN_GROUP at .SYNTAX-ERROR.;;;;, ":bea::" wrote: A fascinating and in my opinion very accurate text Time in the Shadows of Anonymity: Fighting Against Surveillance Cameras, Transparency, and Global Capitalism The widespread and rapidly increasing use of surveillance cameras for the purposes of "security" and law enforcement is not something that is taking place in isolation, on the margins of society, or as an after-thought, though many people seem to think so. Take, for example, New York Times architectural critic Herbert Meschamp, who writes in "Echoes of '68 on Columbia's Campus" (Sunday Arts & Leisure section for 24 October 1999) that the surveillance camera in Columbia University's new Lerner Hall "insinuates a sinister presence into the entire composition." Note that, for Meschamp, the "entire composition" -- an abstract space, designed by Bernard Tschumi, that is defined by sheer glass walls -- isn't "sinister" until the surveillance camera is added; and that the "sinister presence" is added by "insinuation," not by direct expression. The camera in Lerner Hall has, in Meschamp's words, "a symbolic as well as a practical function," but it seems that "ornamental" is closer to the architectural critic's meaning than "symbolic." Contrary to Mike Davis -- who writes in City of Quartz (1990) that "one observes an unprecedented tendency to merge urban design, architecture and the police apparatus into a single, comprehensive security effort" -- the camera for Meschamp is an add-on, something not really part of or essential to the composition itself. But, to us, the proliferation of surveillance cameras is directly connected to the very essence of capitalist society. Generalized video surveillance brings into visibility the sinister and repressive essence of spectacular capitalism. To prove our point -- and to advance and enrich the practical struggles of the Surveillance Camera Players -- we need to advance and elaborate upon a theory of surveillance, the foundation of which will be the concept of transparency. It is the demand for and imposition of transparency that unites the apparently isolated spectacle of video surveillance with the general capitalist spectacle. *** To advance a theory of transparency, one must, unfortunately, first clear the air of the stench of the widely and well-reviewed piece of shit entitled The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom? (New York: Addison-Wesley 1998), which was written by David Brin, a science-fiction novelist and staunch defender of capitalism and the State. "When [capitalism] works, under just and impartial rules," Brin said in an on-line interview in 1998, "the free market rewards agility, hard work, and innovation, just as it punishes the stock prices of companies that make too many mistakes" [emphasis added]. As we've pointed out elsewhere, capitalism's "rules" are transparently unjust and totally "partial," and only work for the rich and powerful. Indeed, to speak of capitalism's "rules" at all is to ignore and deflect attention away from the essential irrationality of capitalism, especially of such fundamental capitalist institutions as the division of labor, bureaucracy, and commodity fetishism. As for the modern State, Brin takes a position quite similar to that taken in Reg Whitaker's peculiar book The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality. A weak government is not a guarantee of freedom [Brin says.] It is a guarantee of chaos that will be followed by tyranny. What we need is a strong government that is totally subject to scrutiny so that every mistake that they make will be pounced upon. Though we find ourselves in complete agreement with Brin's assessment of "a weak government," we find it appalling that anyone would prefer more poison to less, rather than no poison at all. Our position is that, if there is anything "we" the People need, it is the abolition of any external governing body, and the instauration of universal self-government, so that "scrutiny" of the actions of others is totally unnecessary and can be completely dispensed with. Typical of someone well-conditioned by capitalism and its State, Brin's attitude towards both the widespread use of surveillance cameras and the emergence (imposition) of "the transparent society" is utterly passive. Cameras are proliferating like locusts [Brin says, using a peculiarly Biblical metaphor]. In Britain they've tied in face-recognition systems to scan pedestrians in search of wanted criminals. Nothing you or I do will stop this. No law will prevent it. Banning the cameras will only drive this technology underground and ensure it's monopolized by some elite group. To prevent "monopolization," Brin would have us do nothing and allow surveillance technology to proliferate and be used by everyone against everyone else. "Nobody ever thinks of the reciprocal transparency solution to these problems and that's taking cameras and shining it back on them," Brin says, his metaphor suggesting that a surveillance camera -- apparently an active projector rather than a passive receptor of light -- "shines the light of truth" upon whomever it is focused. "The light of truth" will, in Brin's words, "force" the "gossips and patricians" to be "polite" and "courteous" -- force being the operative word here. We are going to have to learn something we knew in the old villages, and that's courtesy [Brin says]. For our own safety's sake. We aren't going to be able to hide anything. We'll be safe because our enemies won't be able to hide anything either. But does that make it pleasant if everybody knows everything? The only thing that will make it pleasant is if we grow up a bit. But "reciprocal transparency" -- using surveillance technologies to surveill the surveillants -- is no solution at all. Quite obviously, "reciprocal transparency" simply gives up on and denigrates the fight to defend and reiterate our constitutional rights to free speech and anonymity, and to protection from unreasonable searches of our persons. Furthermore, "reciprocal transparency" is clearly irrational and a doomed strategy: justified in the name of preventing the total surveillance of all by a small minority, "reciprocal transparency" inaugurates the total surveillance of all by all. The "solution" of "two-way transparency" or "omnidirectional surveillance" -- like the Cold War "solution" of mutually assured destruction -- is in fact the generalization of the problem (the war of all against all) to the point of universal crisis. There is and will be nothing "safe" or "pleasant" about the transparent society, that is, the universal destruction of the rights to privacy, anonymity and free assembly: it will be nothing other than the mass murder of social life. *** Not surprisingly, Brin doesn't offer a clear definition of "the transparent." Starting fresh, we take "transparent" to mean the following: 1) pervious solid objects that do not scatter light or prevent its direct transmittal; 2) people or statements that are without deceit or pretense; 3) behavior or speech whose hidden intention or nature is obvious and easily detected, despite deceit or pretense; and 4) behavior or speech whose meaning is clear and easily understood. That is to say, "transparency" is a physical property of certain objects, as well as a metaphor for a jumble of conflicting human qualities or behaviors (honesty, bad lying, and clarity or "rationality"). Quite obviously, context of usage will determine a lot: there can be honesty (clarity of intention) without clarity of expression; clarity of expression without clarity of intention; and lying (opacity of intention) without detection (clarity of perception). But, in all this, there is the underlying assumption that neither obscurity nor opacity is to be trusted, even if they are in fact not "hiding something bad"; "hiding" is "bad" in and of itself. In other words, directly transmitted light (or meaning) is bright, clear and "truthful," and "darkness" (obscurity or opacity) is dull, stupid and "false." Let us call this underlying assumption the ideology of transparency. We should note that, like (pure) silence, (pure) transparency -- or pure, unscattered light -- does not exist. There are in fact only relative degrees of transparency: every object, even air or clear glass, scatters a little light or prevents some of its direct transmittal. Thus, part of the ideology of transparency is the denial of its relativity, and the irrational belief in and insistence upon absolute transparency. The relevance of the ideology of transparency to the use of surveillance cameras is easy to see: figuratively speaking, the cameras render transparent any and all walls and other obstacles that stand between the surveillant and the space he or she wishes to surveill (which we define as "observe continuously for the purposes of direction, supervision and control"). There is a clear, though metaphorical, "sight-line" between the hidden surveillant and his or her target. The most-advanced surveillance cameras can literally "see through" and render transparent heavy rain, darkness and such opaque solid objects as clothing. Thus, both literally and figuratively speaking, surveillance cameras intend to make everything not only "visible" but transparent, as well. If you are not transparent -- if you are clearly doing something unfamiliar and "unpredictable," if you are transparently hiding from or doing something obscure or opaque in front of a surveillance camera -- you are immediately suspicious, even guilty, of non-compliance. Ultimately, surveillance cameras are designed to render transparent to the surveillant's eye the purposes behind and meanings of every physical movement, indeed, the very thoughts in someone's head: are these law-abiding thoughts? or are they the thoughts of someone who is about to break the law or who has already broken the law? *** Here George Orwell's nightmarish 1984 remains relevant, 50 years after its publication. For Orwell dreamed that Big Brother would rule using a combination of three very modern techniques: video surveillance (the "Telescreen"), physical coercion ("Room 101"), and both detectable and undetectable mind-control. (We all remember The Thought Police and the illegalization of "thought-crime," but we all too easily forget that, as O'Brien tells Winston, seven years before Winston "first" committed thought-crime, O'Brien planted in his mind -- without Winston's knowing it -- the phrase "We will meet in the place where there is no darkness"). Except for the architecture of the city (see below), Orwell envisioned transparency being imposed at all levels: the walls of the room that Winston rents from the old shop-keeper are transparent to the gaze of the (hidden) Telescreen, and Winston's suppressed fear of rats is transparent to O'Brien, who uses it against Winston in Room 101. There is "no darkness" anywhere in Big Brother's Oceania; it has been banned and forcibly removed in advance. In our society, there is "no darkness" -- or, rather, there is "less darkness" -- in part because the mass of people have been conditioned to "voluntarily" make themselves transparent to the gaze of all. As demonstrated by certain works by Michel Foucault and Jean Baudrillard, the Catholic Church (specifically, the institution of confession, which has become generalized through-out "Christian" culture), and "reality-based" televisions shows, respectively, inculcate and reward the adoption and internalization of the notions that it is both moral and healthy to routinely render oneself transparent (to either the eyes of God or the eyes of the camera). No one should be "hiding something," no matter what it is. Everything must be publicly confessed, no matter how banal or reprehensible. There is something suspicious -- something morally offensive -- about people who, in David Brin's words, refuse to stop "cowering in the cool shadows offered by city life, " people who will neither become completely invisible nor stop being obscure and opaque. In this regard, there is substantial interest in the content (and not just in the form) of "reality-based" television. Under-rated as a TV critic, Jean Baudrillard long ago pointed to the emergence of transparency -- he preferred to call it "simulation" -- in the 1970s reality-based television show that documented the wrenching everyday life of the Loudes, a "real family." Explicitly arguing against Orwell's foregrounding of physical coercion and his assumption that Big Brother's gaze would be resisted by deceit, evasion, and stealth (symbolized by Winston's secret diary), Baudrillard insisted that the masses were actually people like the Loudes, who needed no coercing, didn't resist, kept no secrets, and were in fact quite willing to be surveilled round-the-clock and have their private lives made transparent to the voyeuristic eyes of the entire TV-watching world. To control the masses, Baudrillard argued, the State no longer needed either surveillance cameras (the Telescreen) or the spectacle (as the term was used by Guy Debord and other members of the Situationist International to designate a form of capitalist society in which material wealth has become so accumulated and concentrated that the ruling classes, in order to divert attention from the necessity of a social revolution in keeping with society's new wealth, waste some of that surplus wealth in "spectacular" ritualized public displays of participation). To Baudrillard's eyes, the masses had internalized the functions of both surveillance camera and spectacular monitor: the two merged into a single simulacrum of reality, a "hyper-reality." Baudrillard's 1970s work reminds us of a very important insight, one that is similar to the central insight of Wilhelm Reich's The Mass Psychology of Fascism: people want to be rendered transparent ("famous"), even if they realize that it isn't in their best interests. The problem is not intellectual befuddlement or "false consciousness," but repressed desire and biologically-grounded authoritarian character-structures. But Baudrillard was wrong about surveillance cameras and ritualized spectacle, both of which have remained necessary as forms of State control of society. Indeed, these two tools of power have become ever-more relied upon since the 1970s. As Orwell understood, these two tools are closely related, a fact which in part accounts for their effectiveness. Surveillance cameras or the Telescreen (enforced transparency) accompany and balance the daily "Two Minutes Hate" broadcast (the spectacle of the transparency of Emmanuel Goldtstein's guilt). If they are not properly conditioned by the spectacle, people will not accept the imposition of transparency; without the imposition of transparency, people will not derive any satisfaction from spectacle. To briefly pursue a tangent: This does not mean that we are perfectly comfortable with the situationist concept of spectacle, despite our use of it in certain contexts. (The concept of spectacle was also elaborated by Georges Bataille and Antonin Artaud.) As the situationists defined and identified it, the spectacle is (paradoxically) a giant obscurity, an immense blind spot or opacity. Despite its literal and figurative "visibility" -- its obsessive visualization (representation) of life -- the spectacle is essentially a mechanism of distraction, deception, diversion and dissimulation: Le monde n'est qu'abusion. Debord repeatedly likens the spectacle to Freud's dream-work in The Interpretation of Dreams (1899): So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity [Debord writes]. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of that sleep. [Emphasis added.] A pretense to a type of X-ray vision rules here. To the "interpreter" (Freud or Debord), the dream (individial or social) is, despite appearances, not opaque and is not lacking clarity of expression. The dream (or spectacle) is transparently the work of the unconscious (or political economy), and the content of the dream itself, again despite appearances, is transparent (it is a wish). There is no opacity or contradiction in the spectacle being both "bad dream" and "the guardian of . . . sleep" if you believe, as Freud did, that all dreams -- even or especially bad dreams -- are in fact wish-fulfillments, and that the primary wish that they all fulfill is the simple wish (the expression of the basic biological need) to continue sleeping. The problem here is that, while Freud's subject was actual (literal) sleep, Debord's "sleep" is metaphorical: in the spectacle, people are encouraged to act as if they are in a dream, though they are in fact wide awake, and need to be "woken up" to this fact. Thus, Debord has both inherited a problem from Freud (the one identified by Wilhelm Reich, i.e., Freud's concept of "wish-fulfillment" doesn't examine the socio-historical nature of the creation of wishes and the desire for their fulfillment), and caused one on his own (the metaphorization of sleep turns a deep psychology into a surface one that has no understanding of the biological function of dream-spectacles). Debord doesn't help us when it comes to answering this fundamental question: if the spectacle is "bad art," then why do people continue to find it biologically satisfying (and not just temporarily diverting)? To return to our point: because of the mirror-like relationship between surveillance and spectacle, "reality-based" (transparent) television hasn't simply grown in popularity since The Loudes: it has come to dominate and re-define television. "America's Funniest Home Videos," "MTV's Real World," "The Jerry Springer Show" and others far too numerous to name depend upon, not celebrities and professional actors, but ordinary people who are happy to expose their private lives to the global video confessional, even if they know that they are being ridiculed and laughed at. Such other popular "reality-based" television shows as "RealTV," "Cops," and the myriad versions of the "Caught on Tape" theme -- the opposite of shows about real events that use re-enactments as their content, and thus retain a degree of opacity -- have also completely dispensed with celebrities and actors, and rely exclusively on footage of ordinary people that has been recorded by either other "private" citizens or police departments. A carnival of constitutional-rights violations, these shows horrify and disgust everyone except those who irrationally fancy themselves to be better, more knowledgeable or smarter people because they, unlike those idiots who have been "caught" doing stupid things and are now being publicly displayed, know that everyone is being surveilled at all moments, and that "there is no more privacy." How do they know this? Because they themselves are the surveillants of themselves! Paradoxically, the desire to "participate" in the spectacle of "reality" -- an irrational desire born of a society that is based upon passivity, spectatorship and non-intervention -- is so strong that people are willing to destroy whatever human reality their lives had in order to become "famous." A growing number of people -- most notoriously American high school students -- commit spectacular crimes (murder/suicides) so as to appear on the news, "be famous" and thereby "participate" in the transparent reality of the spectacle -- when, tragically, it is in fact as impossible to "participate" in transparent reality as it is to breathe in a vacuum. You will readily understand why people will go to any lengths to get in the film to cover themselves with any old film scrap . . junky . . narcotics agent . . thief . . informer . . anything to avoid the hopeless dead-end horror of being just who and where you all are: dying animals on a doomed planet. -- William S. Burroughs, The Ticket That Exploded, 1962. Ironically, this rush to make oneself famous at any cost takes place within === message truncated === --------------------------------- Sell you car, by placing a classified ad on Yahoo India Autos . It's Free!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020623/bc21bd2b/attachment.html From prajaf at vsnl.com Mon Jun 24 15:00:09 2002 From: prajaf at vsnl.com (Yazad Jal) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 15:00:09 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On Being a Baby Magnet Message-ID: <008201c21b62$e275a160$d23fc7cb@vsnl.net.in> On Being a Baby Magnet by Bob Wallace For about ten years I've been a Baby Magnet. It took a while to figure out why. It's because these babies don't have fathers around them. I can walk through a door, and a baby in a stroller will point at me and exclaim, "That's a man!" I point back and say, "That's a baby!" I glance at the mother's hand. No ring. I can stand in a bookstore, and look down to find a baby holding my hand. "Sorry," says the mom, who also has no ring. "Forget it," I answer. "It's my lot in life." Once, at my sister's house, I had to sit on the floor near the door because the living room was full of teenage girls. A little boy, who could walk but not talk, spied me from across the room, made a bee-line for me, and threw his arm around my neck. (He had a snotty nose. When I told him to get some toilet paper - which he understood - he grabbed a handful and brought it to me in the living room without detaching it from the roll in the bathroom.) I later asked my sister if he had a father. "No," she told me, "he doesn't." This is never-ending for me. Kids wave at me on the streets, try to hold my hand, and want me to watch them while they show off jumping rope or singing or dancing. When I got out of my car Friday night, the little girl next door was waiting for me. "Do you want to see me do my cheer?" she asked. So she did it, while I smiled and applauded. She has no father. None of these kids do. Since they don't, they want male attention. Why they choose me I don't know. It must be the way I look, even though I certainly don't understand what That Look is. When I look in the mirror what I see is a rubbery, goofy/friendly face that looks much like Ralphie in A Christmas Story. Maybe, today, Spongebob Squarepants. Since the '60's, feminists have claimed fathers aren't really necessary. What's unnecessary are these kinds of socialist feminists, most of whom are feminists because they're aren't very feminine. Crewcuts and tattoos doth not a true feminist make. They barely make a woman, and the kind they make I'm not interested in. Maybe Janet "Yikes! A Monster!" Reno might be, but certainly not me. The history of the world has shown that fathers are necessary. The word "bastard," for example, means "a fatherless boy" and "a cruel, heartless man." The first often turns into the second, no matter how much the blind pretend it doesn't. What we have in society currently are the blind leading the blind. Oops! There's the ditch! I once found a little fatherless boy torturing a cat. I yelled at him and took the cat away. It was wheezing blood through its nose. I thought it was going to die, but it lived. I gave it to my sister and her kids, who took care of it until a Chevy morphed it into a Frisbee. "Poor thang," I told him, as I shoveled him into a bucket, then put him in the backyard with two other cats, a dog, a rabbit, a couple of birds, a turtle, some marbles and plastic army men I buried when I was a kid, and a pack of Marlboros I hid when I was 12 and could never find. When children are raised without fathers the boys become teenagers and form predatory gangs. The girls get pregnant and have children who are raised without fathers. The cycle repeats itself. Women are responsible for two-thirds of all child abuse. Boys are twice as likely to be abused by women as girls. A father at home is the best way to prevent this, not a social worker. The media pretends the truth is the opposite, just the way they pretend the problem in the Catholic Church is "pedophiles" instead of homosexuals. (Pedophiles molest children; pederasts molest teenagers. The problem in the Church is predatory pederasts.) Shame on the media for all their distortions, ignorance and lies. Some years ago I walked out of a friend's house late at night. I ran into a gang of teenage boys on the sidewalk. "You got a cigarette?" the leader asked. "No, I don't," I said. "Why don't you give me the one in your mouth?" He grinned. I put my hand in my pocket and stared at him. "You got a gun?" he asked. His grin was gone. I said nothing, but gave him my best Chucky-"Good-Guy"-Doll-goes-crazy-look. They decided to not take the chance and faded away. Later, I contacted the police. "A bunch of fatherless boys living on welfare," they told me. "They just moved in. We know who they are." They quickly ran all of them out of the neighborhood. Ah, the wonders of the liberal welfare society. It breaks up families, or else prevents them from forming. Coupled with the catastrophic failure of the public schools and the fact that high-paying blue-collar jobs have been run out of the country because of massive taxation and regulation, we have now lost entire generations of children, who have essentially become psychopaths. You can blame these problems on women who have babies without fathers. You can blame it on fathers who desert their families (like the creep Phil Donahue, who traded his wife and family for a much-younger trophy wife). I, however, mostly blame it on the State, for interfering in family life. The more the State expands, the more Civilization recedes. It's a Law of the Universe. And the family is the foundation of Civilization. In the past, we had answers to incompetent parents. They were called orphanages. I was an undergraduate at a university that used to have an orphanage. It was closed down before I started school. I used to study at it because it was so quiet and peaceful. I once read an article in the paper about the kids who lived there. They grew up to be good citizens. They became doctors and lawyers, cabdrivers and carpenters. All honest jobs. Very, very few became criminals. I try to do my part, but I can't be father to 20 kids. June 17, 2002 Bob Wallace [bob.wallace at att.net], a former newspaper reporter and editor, and an incurable lover of puns, lives in St. Louis. Article URL: http://www.lewrockwell.com/wallace/wallace46.html Copyright © 2002 LewRockwell.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020624/9ef55ee2/attachment.html From zamrooda at sarai.net Mon Jun 24 17:30:17 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 17:30:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Notes from the court-3 Message-ID: <02062417301702.01671@legal.sarai.kit> . home Causelist JUDIS Daily orders Court websites COURTNIC Indiacode Home Indian Judiciary JUDIS Agreement JUDIS CD manual IT in Judiciary Ministry of Law & Justice FAQ Help Disclaimer NIC   . Cause List A.P. HCBombay HCCalcutta HCGuwahati HCDelhi HCGujarat HCJ & K HCKarnataka HCKerala HCMP HCMadras HCOrissa HCP & H HCPatna HCJaipur (Raj. HC)Jodhpur (Raj. HC)Andaman BenchAurangabad BenchIndore BenchNagpur BenchPanaji Bench________________ . JUDIS Supreme CourtAPDELHIJ&KMADRASORISSA________________ . Court Websites DELHIBOMBAYCALCUTTAKERALAJ&KAP________________ . Daily Orders SCDELHI HC________________ Contact Address Courts Informatics Devision, National Informatics Centre, Ministry Of Information Technology, A- Block, C.G.O. Complex, Lodi Road, New Delhi - 110 003, INDIA.   e-mail : clist at hub.nic.in Fax 011-4364873       IT in Judiciary   MINISTRY OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY NATIONAL INFORMATICS CENTRE COURTS INFORMATICS DIVISION ****** Status of Information Technology in Indian Courts Ever since NIC took up computerization in Supreme Court in 1990, many applications have been computerized which have impact on masses i.e. litigants. Following are some of the applications which have been successfully implemented at Supreme Court and 18 High Courts and these applications have either direct or indirect impact on the masses . Supreme Court of India List of Business Information System (LOBIS): It is about scheduling of cases to be heard by the courts on the following day. It enabled the Registries of Supreme Court and High Courts in eliminating manual process of Cause List generation thus any manipulation by vested interests. These databases contain details of fresh cases, disposed and pending cases. It is the backbone application of every Court. Impact:As Cause Lists are generated automatically by the computer manual intervention has been eliminated resulting in generation of Cause List in time with out any hassleCases are listed strictly in chronological order of date of filing; eliminated irregularitiesAll cases having the same law point(s) to be decided by the courts are bunched/grouped and posted before one bench. This has helped the courts in faster disposal of cases.It has become simpler to recall dismissed cases when review petitions are filed. On the spot reliable and instantaneous statistical reports are generatedIt has helped Registry of Supreme Court in streamlining its day to day activities to achieve one of the main objectives of COURTIS Project Filing Counter Computerization In the Supreme Court of India and all High Courts fresh cases are filed only before the computerized Filing Counters. As the advocates stand in queue for Filing cases before the counters, the data entry Operator enters preliminary details required for Registration such as Party names, advocate details, etc. The computer terminal at the query counter is used to attend to the quarries of the litigants on the spot. The defects, if any, are listed out and handed over to the litigants/advocates for rectification. Time limitation is also checked by the system automatically.   ImpactThe filing process is made easyThe advocates/litigants need not wait for a long time in the queueThe amount collected towards Court fee in a day is automatically calculated thus saving the time of court official's timeQuery counter avoids the litigants go around the sections to find out the Filing status Filing process is orderly Saves time and efforts of advocates and court officials COURTNIC This is about providing Supreme Courts' pending case status information to litigants/advocates on any node of NICNET. COURTNIC answers about two hundred queries of litigants/advocates per day all over the country on the status of their pending cases. It is available on nominal charges. Primarily COURTNIC information is available in all NIC-High Court Computer Cells and in some District Court. It has been in use since 1993. Impact The response to the COURTNIC from the public is over-whelming, as pending cases information is available at his/her District headquarters. It avoids the litigants to come all over to Delhi from their place. The litigants need not find the status of their pending cases on phone as is the usual practice. Probably this facility is first of its kind in the world. JUDIS NIC has brought out Judgement Information System (JUDIS) consisting of complete text of all reported judgement of Supreme Court of India from 1950 to 1998. The Judgements of 1999 onwards are available on Internet. JUDIS-CD is available on a Membership basis for Rs. 6000/-. It is marketed by NICSI. (http://judisi.nic.in)   Supreme Court's pending Cases on IVR Interested litigants and advocates can find out the status of their cases pending in Supreme Court on telephone by making use of Interactive Voice. Response System (IVR) free of charge. For accessing this, the phone nos. are: 011-4362062, 4360112.   Cause Lists on Internet (http://causelists.nic.in) Causelists are scheduling of cases to be heard by the courts on the following day. The Causelists of Supreme Court and many other High Courts are available on NIC Web Servers. As the Supreme Court of India and all the 18 High Courts and their 10 Benches are fully computerised, all these courts generate Daily and Weekly Causelists from the computer servers installed by NIC. The Causelist application is the backbone application of all courts as no court can function with out that day's Causelist. Hence this has become near time critical application in all the Courts. Immediately after generation of the Causelist most of the courts cyclostyle the stencils cut from the printers attached to the servers for generating thousands of copies running into a few lakhs of pages every day. Due to this reason the courts take a lot of time for generation and supply of the Causelists to the advocates at their offices or residences. Usually the advocates receive the cyclostyled copies of a day's Cause List not before 8 PM. Some High Courts send the Causelists data on floppy to the Printers for printing thousands of copies. This process costs each High Courts lakhs of Rupees every year. By making the Causelists available on Internet, no High Court is incurring any expenditure as they are using the already available infrastructure and the Software of NIC. Features It is available on InternetCauselists of all High Courts can be accessed at URL i.e. http://causelists.nic.in Advocates can generate their own Causelist consisting of his/her own casesRetrieval through the name of either petitioner or respondent Court wise list can be generatedJudge wise list can be preparedEntire Causelist can be printed, if requiredCase no. wise access is possible Impact Advocates are able to receive the Cause lists almost immediately after courts hoursAdvocate can generate their own casuists which will contain only their cases, thus avoiding them to go through hundreds of pages to locate their casesAs the application is available on Internet, the litigant public can easily find out whether their cases are coming for hearing or not, with out bothering the advocatesSome courts are considering to reduce the generation of copies of Causelists, as most of the advocates are dependent on the Internet version of Causelists, thus the courts can save good amount money on annual basis NIC has made the Causelists of the following High Courts on its Web servers apart from the Supreme Court of India: Supreme Court of India High Court of Allahabad High Court of Andhra Pradesh Bombay High Court Bombay High Court - Nagpur Bench Delhi High Court High Court of Gujarat High Court of Madhya Pradesh - Indore Bench High Court of Madhya Pradesh - Jabalpur High Court of Karnataka Madras High Court High Court of Punjab & Haryana, Chandigarh High Court of Rajasthan - Jaipur Bench High Court of Rajasthan - Jodhpur High Court of Calcutta Ever since NIC has made the Causelists of the Supreme Court of India and High Courts available on Internet, this application has received huge response from the advocates and litigant public. To understand the enormous response the application has received, herewith one week's Day wise Hit statistics are enclosed. On an average it is receiving 10,000 hits per day. By any standard, it is a significant number for one application. For the purpose of illustration, some of the screens associated with the application are also enclosed.   High Courts Computerisation NIC took up computerisation of all 18 High Courts and 9 Benches on the lines of Apex Court's Computerisation. NIC implemented the List of Business Information (LOBIS) in all High Court Courts. Some of the High Courts' Cause List are also available on Internet. Many possible applications in all High Courts have been computerised. Most of the High Courts have opened query counters along with Filing Counters for providing pending cases information to the litigants and advocates. Facilities provided are: Causelists are generated automaticallyBunching/Grouping is done Computer based Filing Counters are openedQuery counters are availableJUDIS & COURTNIC are availableAll HCs are connected on NICNET/InternetDay to day Judgements and Orders are stored on computers District Courts Computerisation In 1997, NIC took up the computerisation of all 430 District Courts in the country on the lines of High Courts Computerisation Project. The basic objectives of the project are: to provide transparency of information to the litigants and advocates to help the judicial administration in streamlining its activities to provide judicial and legal databases to the District Judges   NIC provided three level training programs to the District Court officials. The three levels are:Computer Awareness Programs for the District Judges. These training programs were chaired by either the Hon'ble Chief Justice or one of the Hon'ble Judges of the concerned High Court.Supervisory level training at NIC State Centres. These supervisory level officials were identified and sent to NIC State Centres by the District Courts for training on day to day maintenance of the computers and its peripherals.In-house hands on training to the District Court officials working on the computer terminals. The District Informatics Officers of NIC posted at the District Magistrates' Office imparted this training. All officials have been trained on 'District Court Information System' (DCIS) SW. The DCIS Software is a huge general purpose Software package developed for the computerisation of District Courts. This software takes care of all aspects of District Court needs. The project is yet to pickup momentum in most of the District Courts for want of interest from the District Court officials. NIC has proposed to conduct another round of Training to the users.   From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Jun 27 17:43:34 2002 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 17:43:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] :::::::::::Surveillance::::::::::::::::::::::::: In-Reply-To: <20020622223515.62712.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> References: <20020622223515.62712.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <02062717433400.01385@sweety.sarai.kit> Dear Pratap, Beatrice, and all on the Readers List, I am writing after a long absence but have been following with great interest the issues raised by Pratap Pandey, and responded to, by Beatrice, on surveillance. Some months ago, I had written about the possibility of a new identity card scheme as a measure of surveillance - that the Government of India is actively contemplating. At that time, I recall that in private conversations, many had dismissed this scheme, and its implications, as impossible to implement, for technical and logistical reasons. I was never so sanguine, and am not sanguine now. The point is not whether or not you can create a system that requires the issue of a billion identity cards with imbedded biometric information, and wherther or not you can set up a database sophisticated and comprehensive enough to deal with this system once it is in place. In fact, it need not be a billion strong. it may only be used in cities, and in bodred areas (where it is already in place). The existence of even a backbone of this system is enough to generate the symbolic apparatus, and the behaviour patterns that accompany the rise of an intensive state surveillance regime. The development of the "identity card" scheme is alive and well, and sporadic news of this measure continues to surface, quietly. I am enclosing below an excerpt from a news report of a speech made by our President in waiting A P J Abdul Kalam, or Dr. Strangelove, himself. (has anyone noticed the strange resemblence he bears to the visage of Alfred E Newman, who has graced the covers of so many issues of that respectable journal called the Mad Magazine) Anyway, in this speech, (which he delivered to Nasscom, the National Association of Software and Service Companies in Hyderabad) this engineer-nuclear scientist-bomb builder-rocket launcher-media darling-veena player-patriot-personnel manager-bharat ratna, called for an integrated identity card for better surveillance. With him at the helm of the republic, I feel doubly re-assured that bade bhayya, or big brother, will indeed be looking gently down on all our biometric profiles, and taking notes. So here is the full story - ___________________________________________________ Kalam for introduction of "national citizen card" Express News Service New Delhi, June 25: (www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=4953) Presidential candidate A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Tuesday suggested introduction of a multi-purpose "national citizen card" as a means to combat hackers at the workshop organised by NASSCOM on information security. "Our communication network and information generators have to be protected from the electronic attacks through surveillance, monitoring and building technologies to handle such attacks," he said. According to him, the national citizen/smart card needs an integrated approach from multiple departments and can be an instrument which can be used as a voter ID card, to operate bank account, a ration card among other applications. It was essential for India to become a knowledge power within a decade, he said, and that it should be achieved through societal transformation and wealth generation. He said for strengthening information security there has to be a focussed approach to intellectual property rights and major private sector initiatives have to be taken in this regard for ensuring a fool-proof system. Kalam talked of the task force set up by Planning Commission which identified core areas like information and communication technology, biotechnology, weather forecasting, disaster management and tele medicine and tele education. "These core technologies can be interwoven by IT and multiple technologies and management structures have to be integrated to form a knowledge society," he said. On the ocassion, government announced setting-up a Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS) which will address the issues of protection, surveillance, monitoring and certification. __________________________________________________________________ Notice howthe issues of "hacking", "electronic security", "national security" and a citizen ID card get neatly conflated even though they do not have any bearing on each other. I mean, if someone wanted to protect themselves against what is here called "hacking", what good would it to do to check on whether people are carrying an ID on their person in the middle of the street. Its a little like enforcing electronic fences around kindergartens as a measure to ensure that banks don't get robbed. But then, the wisdom of the rulers is always obscure to the ruled. Or, is it, as I suspect it to be, only a case of the rulers taking the advantage due to them as a result of the wholesale ignorance about the politics of information that is the hallmark of intellectual life in this society, to advance, out of a continuing confusion, the working blueprint of the new techno security apparatus. What a wonderful way to commemorate the eve of the 27th anniversary of the delcaration of emergency in India, which was one of the occasions when we saw bade bhayya, or big brother, "come out" in grand style. Meanwhile, even at the places where many of us work, we are begining to be asked to get used to the idea of having to produce photographic identity cards, to guarantee access to our own spaces. Naturally, this is being done in the interests of our own security. Of course, the best surveillance is the one that you generate on and about yourself. And I am getting used to a quiet electronic hum as a base soundtrack of my mobile phone. National security begins close to my eardrum. As I flew into India a few days ago, I was asked to fill in a long and wonderfully intricate form detailing who I was and what I did, before setting foot on the matri-pitri-punya bhoomi of Bharat that is India. As I did this, I looked out of the aircrafts window to see the splendid array of bright lights that mark the international border between India and Pakistan. Here was Fortress India, visible from the sky, and inscribed into the fine print of the disembarkation card, that I held in the palm of my hand. Did I mention paranoia, no ladies and gentlemen, not once, I am just whispering sweet nothings about how good it feels to be safe, secure, and under surveillance, how good it is to know that the international border is always close to where you are, that forces have been and will be deployed, that "the situation is tense, but under control" I hope somebody is listening in... how about swapping a few tales about how it feels like to know they are watching, listening, waiting, as the walls grow higher, inch by inch, in fortress India cheers (?) Shuddha From zombielabs at yahoo.com Tue Jun 25 03:56:27 2002 From: zombielabs at yahoo.com (Rahul Jindal) Date: Tue, 25 Jun 2002 03:56:27 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Bhagat Singh: An Atheist, view beyond Mr Devgan's Potrayal Message-ID: <000201c21c2f$e9c2e5e0$8ef70b3d@zombie> Not sure about the origin or the veracity of the following, though it makes a logical read. -- Why I Am An Atheist By Bhagat Singh [Oct. 1930] A new question has cropped up. Is it due to vanity that I do not believe in the existence of an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God? I had never imagined that I would ever have to confront such a question. But conversation with some friends has given me, a hint that certain of my friends, if I am not claiming too much in thinking them to be so-are inclined to conclude from the brief contact they have had with me, that it was too much on my part to deny the existence of God and that there was a certain amount of vanity that actuated my disbelief. Well, the problem is a serious one. I do not boast to be quite above these human traits. I am a man and nothing more. None can claim to be more. I also have this weakness in me. Vanity does form a part of my nature. Amongst my comrades I was called an autocrat. Even my friend Mr. B.K. Dutt sometimes called me so. On certain occasions I was decried as a despot. Some friends do complain and very seriously too that I involuntarily thrust my opinions upon others and get my proposals accepted. That this is true up to a certain extent, I do not deny. This may amount to egotism. There is vanity in me in as much as our cult as opposed to other popular creeds is concerned. But that is not personal. It may be, it is only legitimate pride in our cult and does not amount to vanity. Vanity or to be more precise "Ahankar" is the excess of undue pride in one's self. Whether it is such an undue pride that has led me to atheism or whether it is after very careful study of the subject and after much consideration that I have come to disbelieve in God, is a question that I, intend to discuss here. Let me first make it clear that egotism and vanity are two different things. In the first place, I have altogether failed to comprehend as to how undue pride or vaingloriousness could ever stand in the way of a man in believing in God. I can refuse to recognize the greatness of a really great man provided I have also achieved a certain amount of popularity without deserving it or without having possessed the qualities really essential or indispensible for the same purpose. That much is conceivable. But in what way can a man believing in God cease believing due to his personal vanity? There are only two Ways. The man should either begin to think himself a rival of God or he may begin to believe himself to be God. In neither case can he become a genuine atheist. In the first case he does not even deny the existence of his rival. In the second case as well he admits the existence of a conscious being behind the screen guiding all the movements of nature. It is of no importance to us whether he thinks himself to be that supreme being or whether he thinks the supreme conscious being to be somebody apart from himself. The fundamental is there. His belief is there. He is by no means an atheist. Well, here I am I neither belong to the first category nor to the second. I deny the very existence of that Almighty Supreme being. Why I deny it shall be dealt with later on. Here I want to clear one thing, that it is not vanity that has actuated me to adopt the doctrines of atheism. I am neither a rival nor an incarnation nor the Supreme Being Himself. One point is decided, that it is not vanity that has led me to this mode of thinking. Let me examine the facts to disprove this allegation. According to these friends of mine I have grown vainglorious perhaps due to the undue popularity gained during the trials-both Delhi Bomb and Lahore conspiracy cases. Well, let us see if their premises are correct. My atheism is not of so recent origin. I had stopped believing in God when I was an obscure young man, of whose existence my above mentioned friends were not even aware. At least a college student cannot cherish any short of undue pride which may lead him to atheism. Though a favourite with some professors and disliked by certain others, I was never an industrious or a studious boy. I could not get any chance of indulging in such feelings as vanity. I was rather a boy with a very shy nature, who had certain pessimistic dispositions about the future career' And in those days, I was not a perfect atheist. My grand-father under whose influence I was brought up is an orthodox Arya Samajist. An Arya Samajist is anything but an atheist. After finishing my primary education I joined the D.A.V. School of Lahore and stayed in its Boarding House for full one year. There, apart from morning and evening prayers, I used to recite "Gayatri Mantra" for hours and hours. I was a perfect devotee in those days. Later on I began to live with my father. He is a liberal in as much as the orthodoxy of religions is concerned. It was through his teachings that I aspired to devote my life to the cause of freedom. But he is not an atheist. He is a firm believer. He used to encourage me for offering prayers daily. So, this is how I was brought up. In the Non-Co-operation days I joined the National College. it was there that I began to think liberally and discuss and criticise all the religious problems, even about God. But still I was a devout believer. By that time I had begun to preserve the unshorn and unclipped long hair but I could never believe in the mythology and doctrines of Sikhism or, any other religion. But I had a firm faith in God's existence. Later on I joined the revolutionary party. The first leader with whom I came in contact, though not convinced, could not dare to deny the existence of God. On my persistent inquiries about God, he used to say, "Pray whenever you want to". Now this is atheism less courage required for the adoption of that creed. The second leader with whom I came in contact was a firm believer. Let me mention his name-respected comrade Sachindra Nath Sanyal, now undergoing life transportation in connexion with the Karachi conspiracy case. From the every first page of his famous and only book, "Bandi Jivan" (or Incarcerated Life), the Glory of God is sung vehemently. In the last page of the second part of that beautiful book his mystic-because of vedantism - praises showered upon God form a very conspicuous part of his thoughts. "The Revolutionary leaflet" distributed- throughout India on January 28th 1925, was according to the prosecution story the result of his intellectual labour, Now, as is inevitable in the secret work the prominent leader expresses his own views-which are very dear to his person and the rest of the workers have to acquiesce in them-in spite of differences, which they might have. In that leaflet one full paragraph was devoted to praise the Almighty and His rejoicings and doing. That is all mysticism. What I wanted to point out was that the idea of disbelief had not even germinated in the revolutionary party. The famous Kakori martyrs-all four of them-passed their last day in prayers. Ram Prasad Bismil was an orthodox Arya Samajist. Despite his wide studies in the field of Socialism and Communism, Rajen Labiri could not suppress his desire, of reciting hymns of the Upanishads and the Gita. I saw only one man amongst them, who never prayed and used to say, "Philosophy is the outcome of human weakness or limitation of knowledge". He is also undergoing a sentence of transportation for life. But he also never dared to deny the existence of God. UP to that period I was only a romantic idealist revolutionary. Uptil then we were to follow. Now came the time to shoulder the whole responsibility. Due to the inevitable reaction for some time the very existence of the Party seemed impossible. Enthusiastic comrades-nay leaders-began to jeer at us. For some time I was afraid that some day I also might not be convinced of the futility of our own programme. That was a turning point in my revolutionary career. "Study" was the cry that reverberated in the corridors of my mind. Study to enable yourself to face the arguments advanced by opposition. Study to arm yourself with arguments in favour of your cult. I began to study. My previous faith and convictions underwent a remarkable modification. The Romance of the violent methods alone which was so prominent amongst our predecessors, was replaced by serious ideas. No more mysticism, no more blind faith. Realism became our cult. Use of force justifiable when resorted to as a matter of terrible necessity: non-violence as policy indispensable for all mass movements. So much about methods. The most important thing was the clear conception of the ideal for which we were to fight, As there were no important activities in the field of action I got ample opportunity to study various ideals of the world revolution. I studied Bakunin, the Anarchist leader, something of Marx the father of Communism and much of Lenin, Trotsky and others the men who had successfully carried out a revolution in their country. They were all atheists. Bakunin's "God and State", though only fragmentary, is an interesting study of the subject. Later still I came across a book entitled 'Common Sense' by Nirlamba Swami. It was only a sort of mystic atheism. This subject became of utmost interest to me. By the end of 1926 I had been convinced as to the baselessness of the theory of existence of an almighty supreme being who created, guided and controled the universe. I had given out this disbelief of mine. I began discussion on the subjects with my friends. I had become a pronounced atheist. But, what it meant will presently be discussed. In May 1927 I was arrested at Lahore. The arrest was a surprise. I was quite unaware of (he fact that the police wanted me. All of a sudden while passing through a garden I found myself surrounded by police. To my own surprise, I was very calm at that time. I did not feel any sensation, neither did I experience any excitement. I was taken into police custody. Next day I was taken to the Railway Police lock-up where I was to pass full one month. After many day's conversation with the Police officials I guessed that they had some information regarding my connexion with the Kakori Party and my other activities in connexion with the revolutionary movement. They told me that I had been to Lucknow while the trial was going on there, that I had negotiated a certain scheme about their rescue, that after obtaining their approval, we had procured some bombs, that by way of test one of the bombs was thrown in the crowd on the occasion of Dussehra 1926. They further informed me, in my interest, that if I could give any statement throwing some light on the activities of the revolutionary party, I was not to be imprisoned but on the contrary set free and rewarded even without being produced as an approver in the Court. I laughed at the proposal. It was all humbug. People holding ideas like ours do not throw bombs on their own innocent people. One fine morning Mr. New man, the then Senior Superintendent of C.I.D., came to me. And after much sympathetic talk with me imparted-to him-the extremely sad news that if I did not give any statement as demanded by them, they would be forced to send me up for trial for conspiracy to wage war in connexion with Kakori Case and for brutal murders in connexion with Dussehra Bomb outrage. And he further informed me that they had evidence enough to get me convicted and hanged. In those days I believed-though I was quite innocent-the police could do it if they desired. That very day certain police officials began to persuade me to offer my prayers to God regularly both the times. Now I-was an atheist. I wanted to settle for myself whether it was in the days of peace and enjoyment alone that I could boast of being an atheist or whether during such hard times as well I could stick to those principles of mine. After great consideration I decided that I could not lead myself to believe in and pray to God. No, I never did. That was the real test and I came, out successful. Never for a moment did I desire to save my neck at the cost of certain other things. So I was a staunch disbeliever : and have ever since been. It was not an easy job to stand that test. 'Belief' softens the hardships, even can make them pleasant. In God man can find very strong consolation and support. Without Him, I man has to depend upon himself. To stand upon one's own legs amid storms and hurricanes is not a child's play. At such testing moments, vanity-if any-evaporates, and man cannot dare to defy the general beliefs, if he does, then we must conclude that he has got certain other strength than mere vanity. This is exactly the situation now. Judgment is already too well known. Within a week it is to be pronounced. What is the consolation with the exception of the idea that I am going to sacrifice my life for a cause ? A God-believing Hindu might be expecting to be reborn as a king, a Muslim or a Christian might dream of the luxuries to be- enjoyed in paradise and the reward he is to get for his sufferings and sacrifices. But what am I to expect? I know the moment the rope is fitted round my neck and rafters removed, from under my feet. that will be the final moment-that will be the last moment. I, or to be more precise, my soul, as interpreted in the metaphysical terminology, shall all be finished there. Nothing further. A short life of struggle with no such magnificent end, shall in itself be the reward if I have the courage to take it in that light. That is all. With no selfish motive, or desire to be awarded here or hereafter, quite disinterestedly have I devoted my life to the cause of independence, because I could not do otherwise. The day we find a great number of men and women with this psychology who cannot devote themselves to anything else than the service of mankind and emancipation of the suffering humanity; that day shall inaugurate the era of liberty. Not to become a king, nor to gain any other rewards here, or in the next birth or after death in paradise, shall they be inspired to challenge the oppressors, exploiters, and tyrants, but to cast off the yoke of serfdom from the neck of humanity and to establish liberty and peace shall they tread this-to their individual selves perilous and to their noble selves the only glorious imaginable-path. Is the pride in their noble cause to be - misinterpreted as vanity? Who dares to utter such an abominable epithet? To him, I say either he is a fool or a knave. Let us forgive him for he can not realize the depth, the emotion, the sentiment and the noble feelings that surge in that heart. His heart is dead as a mere lump of flesh, his eyes are-weak, the evils of other interests having been cast over them. Self-reliance is always liable to be interpreted as vanity. It is sad and miserable but there is no help. You go and oppose the prevailing faith, you go and criticise a hero, a great man, who is generally believed to be above criticism because he is thought to be infallible, the strength of your argument shall force the multitude to decry you as vainglorious. This is due to the mental stagnation, Criticism and independent thinking are the two indispensable qualities of a revolutionary. Because Mahatamaji is great, therefore none should criticise him. Because he has risen above, therefore everything he says-may be in the field of Politics or Religion, Economics or Ethics-is right. Whether you are convinced or not you must say, "Yes, that's true". This mentality does not lead towards progress. It is rather too obviously, reactionary. Because our forefathers had set up a faith in some supreme, being-the Al mighty God- therefore any man who dares to challenge the validity of that faith, or the very existence of that supreme being, he shall have to be called an apostate, a renegade. If his arguments are too sound to be refuted by counter-arguments and spirit too strong to be cowed down by the threat of misfortunes that may befall him by the wrath of the Almighty-he shall be decried as vainglorious, his spirit to be denominated as vanity. Then why to waste time in this vain discussion? Why try to argue out the whole thing? This question is coming before the public for the first time, and is being handled in this matter of fact way for the first time, hence this lengthy discussion. As for the first question, I think I have cleared that it is not vanity that has led me to atheism. My way of argument has proved to be convincing or not, that is to be judged by my readers, not me. I know in the present, circumstances my faith in God would have made my life easier, my burden lighter and my disbelief in Him has turned all the circumstances too dry and the situation may assume too harsh a shape. A little bit of mysticism can make it poetical. But I, do not want the help of any intoxication to meet my fate. I am a realist. I have been trying to overpower the instinct in me by the help of reason. I have not always been successful in achieving this end. But man's duty is to try and endeavour, success depends upon chance and environments. As for the second question that if it was not vanity, then there ought to be some reason to disbelieve the old and still prevailing faith of the existence of God. Yes; I come to that now Reason there is. According to. me, any man who has got some reasoning power at his command always tries to reason out his environments. Where direct proofs are lacking philosophy occupies the important place. As I have already stated, a certain revolutionary friend used to say that Philosophy is the outcome of human weakness. When our ancestors had leisure enough to try to solve out the mystery of this world, its past, present and the future, its whys and wherefores, they having been terribly short of direct proofs, everybody tried to solve the problem in his own way. Hence we find the wide dufferences in the fundamentals of various religious creeds, which some times assume very antagonistic and conflicting shapes. Not only the Oriental and Occidental philosophies differ, there are differences even amongst various schools of thoughts in each hemisphere. Amongst Oriental religions, the Moslem faith is not at all compatible with Hindu faith. In India alone Buddhism and Jainism are sometimes quite separate from Brahmanism, in which there are again conflicting faiths as Arya Samaj and Sanatan Dharma. Charwak is still another independent thinker of the past ages. He challenged the authority of God in the old times. All these creeds differ from each other on the fundamental question., and everybody considers himself to be on the right. There lies the misfortune. Instead of using the experiments and expressions of the ancient Savants and thinkers as a basis for our future struggle against ignorance and to try to find out a solution to this mysterious problem, we lethargical as we have proved to be raise the hue and cry of faith, unflinching and unwavering faith to their versions and thus are guilty of stagnation in human progress. Any man who stands for progress has to criticise, disbelieve and challenge every item of the old faith. Item by item he has to reason out every nook and corner of the prevailing faith. If after considerable reasoning one is led to believe in any theory or philosphy, his faith is welcomed. His reasoning can be mistaken, wrong, misled and sometimes fallacious. But he is liable to correction because reason is the guiding star of his life. But mere faith and blind faith is dangerous: it dulls the brain, and makes a man reactionary. A man who claims to be a realist has to challenge the whole of the ancient faith. If it does not stand the onslaught of reason it crumbles down. Then the first thing for him is to shatter the whole down and clear a space for the erection of a new philosophy. This is the negative side. After it begins the positive work in which sometimes some material of the old faith may be used for the purpose of reconstruction. As far as I am concerned, let me admit at the very outset that I have not been able to study much on this point. I had a great desire to study the Oriental Philosophy but I could not get any chance or opportunity to do the same. But so far as the negative study is under discussion, I think I am convinced to the extent of questioning the soundness of the old faith. I have been convinced as to non-existence of a conscious supreme being who is guiding and directing the movements of nature. We believe in nature and the whole progressive movement aims at the domination of man over nature for his service. There is no conscious power behind it to direct. This is what our philosophy is. As for the negative side. we ask a few questions from the 'believers'. (1) If, as you believe, there is an almighty, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent God-who created the earth or world, please let me know why did he creat it ? This world of woes and miseries, a veritable, eternal combination of number less tragedies: Not a single soul being perfectly satisfied. Pray, don't say that it is His Law: If he is bound by any law, he is not omnipotent. He is another slave like ourselves. Please don't say that it is his enjoyment. Nero burnt one Rome. He killed a very limited number of people. He created very few tragedies, all to his perfect enjoyment. And what is his place in History ? By what names do the historians mention him? All the venomous epithets are showered upon him. Pages are blackened with invective diatribes condemning Nero, the tyrant, the heartless, the wicked. One Changezkhan sacrificed a few thousand lives to seek pleasure in it and we hate the very name. Then how are you going to justify your almighty, eternal Nero, who has been, and is still causing numberless tragedies every day, every hour and every minute ? How do you think to support his misdoings which surpass those of Changez every single moment? I say why did he create this world-a veritable hell, a place of constant and bitter unrest ? Why did the Almighty create man when he had the power not to do it ? What is the justification for all this ? Do you say to award the innocent sufferers hereafter and to punish the wrong-doers as well? Well, well: How far shall you justify a man who may dare to inflict wounds upon your body to apply a very soft and soothing liniment upon it afterwards? How far the supporters and organisers of the Gladiator Institution were justified in throwing men before the half starved furious lions to be cared for and well looked after if they could survive and could manage to escape death by the wild beasts? That is why I ask, 'Why did the conscious supreme being created this world and man in it? To seek pleasure? Where then is the difference between him and Nero'? You Mohammadens and Christians : Hindu Philosophy shall still linger on to offer another argument. I ask you what is your answer to the above-mentioned question ? You don't believe in previous birth. Like Hindus you cannot advance the argument of previous misdoings of the apparently quite innocent sufrerers? I ask you why did the omnipotent labour for six days to create the world through word and each day to say that all was well. Call him today. Show him the past history. Make him study the present situation. Let us see if he dares to say, "All is well", From the dungeons of prisons, from the stores of starvation consuming millions upon millions of human beings in slums and huts, from the exploited labourers, patiently or say apathetically watching the procedure of their blood being sucked by the Capitalist vampires, and the wastage of human energy that will make a man with the least common sense shiver with horror, and from the preference of throwing the surplus of production in oceans rather than to distribute amongst the needy producers-to the palaces of kings built upon the foundation laid with human bones.... let him see all this and let him say "All is well". Why and wherefore ? That is my question. You are silent. All right then, I proceed. Well, you Hindus, you say all the present sufferers belong to the class of sinners of the previous births. Good. You say the present oppressors were saintly people in their previous births, hence they enjoy power. Let me admit that your ancestors were very shrewed people, they tried to find out theories strong enough to hammer down all the efforts of reason and disbelief. But let us analyse how far this argument can really stand. From the point of view of the most famous jurists punishment can be justified only from three or four ends to meet which it is inflicted upon the wrongdoer. They are retributive, reformative and deterrent. The retributive theory is now being condemned by all the advanced thinkers. Deterrent theory is also following the same fate. Reformative theory is the only one which is essential, and indispensable for human progress. It aims at returning the offender as a most competent and a peace-loving citizen to the society. But what is the nature of punishment inflicted by God upon men even if we suppose them to be offenders. You say he sends them to be born as a cow, a cat, a tree, a herb or a best. You enumerate these punishments to be 84 lakhs. I ask you what is its reformative effect upon man ? How many men have met you who say that they were born as a donkey in previous birth for having committed any sin ? None. Don't quote your Puranas. I have no scope to touch your mythologies. Moreover do you know that the greatest sin in this world is to be poor. Poverty is a sin, it is a punishment. I ask you how far would you appreciate a criminologist, a jurist or a legislator who proposes such measures of punishment which shall inevitably force man to commit more offences ? Had not your God thought of this or he also had to learn these things by experience, but at the cost of untold sufferings to be borne by. humanity ? What do you think shall be the fate of a man who has been born in a poor and illiterate family of say a chamar or a sweeper. He is poor, hence he cannot study. He is hated and shunned by his fellow human beings who think themselves to be his superiors having been born in say a higher caste. His ignorance, his poverty and the treatment meted out to him shall harden his heart towards society. Suppose he commits a sin, who shall bear the consequences? God, he or the learned ones of, the society ? What about the punishment of those people who were deliberately kept ignorant by the haughty and egotist Brahmans and who had to pay the penalty by bearing the stream of being led (not lead) in their ears for having heard a few sentences of your Sacred Books of learning-the Vedas ? If they committed any offence-who was to be responsible for them and who was to bear the brunt? My dear friends: These theories are the inventions of the privileged ones: They justify their usurped power, riches and superiority by the help of these theories. Yes: It was perhaps Upton Sinclair, that wrote at some place, that just make a man a believer in immortality and then rob him of all his riches, and possessions. He shall help you even in that ungrudgingly. The coalition amongst the religious preachers and possessors of power brought forth jails, gallows, knouts and these theories. I ask why your omnipotent God, does not stop every man when he is committing any sin or offence ? He can do it quite easily. Why did he not kill war lords or kill the fury of war in them and thus avoid the catastrophe hurled down on the head of humanity by the Great War? Why does he not just produce a certain sentiment in the mind of the British people to liberate India? Why does he not infuse the althuistic enthusiasm in the hearts of all capitalists to forgo their rights of personal possessions of means of production and thus redeem the whole labouring community-nay the whole human society from the bondage of Capitalism. You want to reason out the practicability of socialist theory, I leave it for your almighty to enforce it. People recognize the merits of socialism in as much as the general welfare is concerned. They oppose it under the pretext of its being impracticable. Let the Almighty step in and arrange everything in an orderly fashion. Now don't try to advance round about arguments, they are out of order. Let me tell you, British rule is here not because God wills it but because they possess power and we do not dare to oppose them. Not that it is with the help of God that they are keeping us under their subjection but it is with the help of guns and rifles, bomb and bullets, police and millitia and our apathy that they are successfully committing the most deplorable sin against society- the outrageous exploitation of one nation by another. Where is God ? What is he doing ? Is he enjoying all I these woes of human race ? A Nero; A change (changez): Down with him : Do you ask me how I explain the origin of this world and origion of man ? Alright I tell you. Charles Darwin has tried to throw some light on the subject. Study him. Read Soham Swam's "Commonsense". It shall answer your question to some extent. This is a phenomenon of nature. The accidental mixture of different substances in the shape of nebulace produced this earth. When ? Consult history. The same process produced animals and in the long run man. Read Darwin's 'Origin of Species'. And all the later progress is due to man's constant conflict with nature and his efforts to override it. This is the briefest possible explanation of this phenomenon. Your other argument may be just to ask why a child is born blind or lame if not due to his deeds committed in the previous birth ? This problem has been explained away by biologists as a more biological phenomenon. According to them the whole burden rests upon the shoulders of the parents who may be conscious or ignorant of their own deeds led to mutilation of the child previous to its birth. Naturally you may ask another question-though it is quite childish in essence. If no God existed, how did the people come to believe in him? My answer is clear and brief. As they came to believe in ghosts, and evil spirits; the only difference is that belief in God is almost universal and the philosophy well developed. Unlike certain of the radicals I would not attribute its origin to the ingenuity of the exploiters who wanted to keep the people under their subjection by preaching the existence of a supreme being and then claiming an authority and sanction from him for their privileged positions. Though I do not differ with them on the essential point that all faiths, religions, creeds and such other institutions became in turn the mere supporters of the tyrannical and exploiting institutions, men and classes. Rebellion against king is always a sin according to every religion. As regards the origin of God my own idea is that having realized the limitations of man, his weaknesses and shortcoming having been taken into consideration, God was brought into imaginary existence to encourage man to face boldly all the trying circumstances, to meet all dangers manfully and to check and restrain his outbursts in prosperity and affluence. God both with his private laws and parental generosity was imagined and painted in greater details. He was to serve as a deterrent factor when his fury and private laws were discussed so that man may not become a danger to society. He was to serve as a father, mother, sister and brother, friend and helpers when his parental qualifications were to be explained. So that when man be in great distress having been betrayed and deserted by all friends he may find consolation in the idea that an ever true friend was still there to help him, to support him and that He was almighty and could do anything. Really that was useful to the society in the primitive age. The idea of God is helpful to man in distress. Society has to fight out this belief as well as was fought the idol worship and the narrow conception of religon. Similarly, when man tries to stand on his own legs, and become a realist he shall have to throw the faith aside, and to face manfully all the distress, trouble, in which the circumstances may throw him. That is exactly my state of affairs. It is not my vanity, my friends. It is my mode of thinking that has made me an atheist. I don't know whether in my case belief in God and offering of daily prayers which I consider to be most selfish and degraded act on the part of man, whether these prayers can prove to be helpful or they shall make my case worse still. I have read of atheists facing all troubles quite boldly, so am I trying to stand like a man with an erect head to the last; even on the gallows. Let us see how I carry on : one friend asked me to pray. When informed of my atheism, he said, "During your last days you will begin to believe". I said, No, dear Sir, it shall not be. I will think that to be an act of degradation and demoralization on my part. For selfish motives I am not going to pray. Readers and friends, "Is this vanity"? If it is, I stand for it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020625/12acc36b/attachment.html From niki at nirvanet.net Thu Jun 27 14:26:16 2002 From: niki at nirvanet.net (niki) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 10:56:16 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Tate online presents latest netart Message-ID: <3CECF74B@webmail.nirvanet.net> Tate gallery's latest net art--includes the Tate launching in Space! Heath Bunting will develop a new work in a series that is currently underway at www.irational.org/borderXing/. In this series, he carries out border crossings in Europe, locating specific national boundaries and undertaking walks that traverse them without interruption from customs, immigration, or border police. The walks are documented with notes and photographs. Bunting’s walks recall the work of Hamish Fulton and Richard Long and can be seen as contributing to the tradition in conceptual art that takes as its subject themes of landscape and space. Crucially though, these walks question political, economical and juridical aspect of travel. The work will continue to develop throughout the year. Susan Collins has initiated a development programme for a Tate in Space. At this stage of the programme, the Tate in Space website is the key route through which members of the public can follow developments, witness the architectural process, and follow the notional Tate Satellite orbiting earth every 92.56 minutes. The site explores ways in which a Tate in Space might extend visitor experience and engage new audiences. Tate in Space online will act as an arena for debate and reflection on the nature of art in space, raising questions about cultural and institutional ambition and the very human desires to observe and communicate.See http://www.tate.org.uk/space/ Alongside these new works Tate has commissioned supporting texts. Florian Schneider will discuss the work of Heath Bunting and Paul Bonaventura will examine Susan Collins’s project. Josie Berry will provide a contextual overview for the works. These texts will be available on the Tate site on 1 July 2002. http://www.tate.org.uk Notes: Heath Bunting: Biography – http://www.irational.org/cgi-bin/cv/cv.pl?member=heath Susan Collins: Biography – http://www.susan-collins.net/SACbio.html From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Fri Jun 28 03:48:02 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002 23:18:02 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] :::::::::::Surveillance::::::::::::::::::::::::: In-Reply-To: <02062717433400.01385@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <20020627221802.36029.qmail@web8106.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear Shuddha, and Beatrice, and all I address Shuddha first of all: Shuddha, I sent you this mail that was also meant for the List. Could you please post it? I have lost it ( after spending 2 hours on composing it). I can't find it, man! To get on to the subject of surveillance: why is it that the state has the power to "look over"? WE look over our neighbours. We gather info on them. But that's just for evening chat. Now this fascist State (which we are unable to contest) has asked for "military grade" equipment to watch over what I say to anybody on the Net. Forget identity cards. We are into something more serious. We are into the words we use. Every word I send to the List is going to be watched. Gimme a break! How do I fuck these watchers? How do I fuck this technology that promises to constantly read me, interpret me as either a patriot or a terrorist? Tell me, Shuddha, how do write into the List and at the same time send these invisible people love-messages? I want to send to these people (this operative, not at Data Access, but somewhere else) messages that is going to make then squirm. How do I do it? Tell me. yours' pp Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: Dear Pratap, Beatrice, and all on the Readers List, I am writing after a long absence but have been following with great interest the issues raised by Pratap Pandey, and responded to, by Beatrice, on surveillance. Some months ago, I had written about the possibility of a new identity card scheme as a measure of surveillance - that the Government of India is actively contemplating. At that time, I recall that in private conversations, many had dismissed this scheme, and its implications, as impossible to implement, for technical and logistical reasons. I was never so sanguine, and am not sanguine now. The point is not whether or not you can create a system that requires the issue of a billion identity cards with imbedded biometric information, and wherther or not you can set up a database sophisticated and comprehensive enough to deal with this system once it is in place. In fact, it need not be a billion strong. it may only be used in cities, and in bodred areas (where it is already in place). The existence of even a backbone of this system is enough to generate the symbolic apparatus, and the behaviour patterns that accompany the rise of an intensive state surveillance regime. The development of the "identity card" scheme is alive and well, and sporadic news of this measure continues to surface, quietly. I am enclosing below an excerpt from a news report of a speech made by our President in waiting A P J Abdul Kalam, or Dr. Strangelove, himself. (has anyone noticed the strange resemblence he bears to the visage of Alfred E Newman, who has graced the covers of so many issues of that respectable journal called the Mad Magazine) Anyway, in this speech, (which he delivered to Nasscom, the National Association of Software and Service Companies in Hyderabad) this engineer-nuclear scientist-bomb builder-rocket launcher-media darling-veena player-patriot-personnel manager-bharat ratna, called for an integrated identity card for better surveillance. With him at the helm of the republic, I feel doubly re-assured that bade bhayya, or big brother, will indeed be looking gently down on all our biometric profiles, and taking notes. So here is the full story - ___________________________________________________ Kalam for introduction of "national citizen card" Express News Service New Delhi, June 25: (www.indian-express.com/full_story.php?content_id=4953) Presidential candidate A.P.J. Abdul Kalam on Tuesday suggested introduction of a multi-purpose "national citizen card" as a means to combat hackers at the workshop organised by NASSCOM on information security. "Our communication network and information generators have to be protected from the electronic attacks through surveillance, monitoring and building technologies to handle such attacks," he said. According to him, the national citizen/smart card needs an integrated approach from multiple departments and can be an instrument which can be used as a voter ID card, to operate bank account, a ration card among other applications. It was essential for India to become a knowledge power within a decade, he said, and that it should be achieved through societal transformation and wealth generation. He said for strengthening information security there has to be a focussed approach to intellectual property rights and major private sector initiatives have to be taken in this regard for ensuring a fool-proof system. Kalam talked of the task force set up by Planning Commission which identified core areas like information and communication technology, biotechnology, weather forecasting, disaster management and tele medicine and tele education. "These core technologies can be interwoven by IT and multiple technologies and management structures have to be integrated to form a knowledge society," he said. On the ocassion, government announced setting-up a Society for Electronic Transactions and Security (SETS) which will address the issues of protection, surveillance, monitoring and certification. __________________________________________________________________ Notice howthe issues of "hacking", "electronic security", "national security" and a citizen ID card get neatly conflated even though they do not have any bearing on each other. I mean, if someone wanted to protect themselves against what is here called "hacking", what good would it to do to check on whether people are carrying an ID on their person in the middle of the street. Its a little like enforcing electronic fences around kindergartens as a measure to ensure that banks don't get robbed. But then, the wisdom of the rulers is always obscure to the ruled. Or, is it, as I suspect it to be, only a case of the rulers taking the advantage due to them as a result of the wholesale ignorance about the politics of information that is the hallmark of intellectual life in this society, to advance, out of a continuing confusion, the working blueprint of the new techno security apparatus. What a wonderful way to commemorate the eve of the 27th anniversary of the delcaration of emergency in India, which was one of the occasions when we saw bade bhayya, or big brother, "come out" in grand style. Meanwhile, even at the places where many of us work, we are begining to be asked to get used to the idea of having to produce photographic identity cards, to guarantee access to our own spaces. Naturally, this is being done in the interests of our own security. Of course, the best surveillance is the one that you generate on and about yourself. And I am getting used to a quiet electronic hum as a base soundtrack of my mobile phone. National security begins close to my eardrum. As I flew into India a few days ago, I was asked to fill in a long and wonderfully intricate form detailing who I was and what I did, before setting foot on the matri-pitri-punya bhoomi of Bharat that is India. As I did this, I looked out of the aircrafts window to see the splendid array of bright lights that mark the international border between India and Pakistan. Here was Fortress India, visible from the sky, and inscribed into the fine print of the disembarkation card, that I held in the palm of my hand. Did I mention paranoia, no ladies and gentlemen, not once, I am just whispering sweet nothings about how good it feels to be safe, secure, and under surveillance, how good it is to know that the international border is always close to where you are, that forces have been and will be deployed, that "the situation is tense, but under control" I hope somebody is listening in... how about swapping a few tales about how it feels like to know they are watching, listening, waiting, as the walls grow higher, inch by inch, in fortress India cheers (?) Shuddha _________________________________________ reader-list: an open discussion list on media and the city. Critiques & Collaborations To subscribe: send an email to reader-list-request at sarai.net with subscribe in the subject header. List archive: --------------------------------- Don't miss Yahoo India's Coverage of 2002 FIFA World Cup -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020627/827ca90e/attachment.html From bea at nungu.com Fri Jun 28 22:15:09 2002 From: bea at nungu.com (:bea::) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 09:45:09 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] data body::::::the problem:::::the solution In-Reply-To: <200206280426.g5S4Q8Iv006862@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: > To get on to the subject of surveillance: why is it that the state has the > power to "look over"? > WE look over our neighbours. We gather info on them. But that's just for > evening chat. > Now this fascist State (which we are unable to contest) has asked for > "military grade" equipment to watch over what I say to anybody on the Net. > Forget identity cards. We are into something more serious. We are into the > words we use. > Every word I send to the List is going to be watched. > Gimme a break! > How do I fuck these watchers? How do I fuck this technology that promises to > constantly read me, interpret me as either a patriot or a terrorist? > Tell me, Shuddha, how do write into the List and at the same time send these > invisible people love-messages? I want to send to these people (this > operative, not at Data Access, but somewhere else) messages that is going to > make then squirm. How do I do it? Tell me. > yours' > pp > nungu recommends some tactics www.anonymizer.com surf and send mail anonymously tracenoizer / www.netartcommons.com produce clones of your databody that trick search engines and databases www.lutherblisset.net fake identity, the mutiple name - a fantastic article by brians holmes in mute magazine on this phenomena, see www.metamute.com [co.uk?] finally .. i recommend a search on the critical art ensemble and their theories of eletronic disturbance nungu's auntie project tried and maybe failed to suggest this. reappropriate your data body. posted again just for those who missed it. Text ­ Surveilled // sampled by nungu.com Today algorithms and processes are as essential to control and surveillance as barbed wire and cameras, perhaps even more so. The Internet was born from DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the central research and development arm of the US Department of Defense. DARPA is perhaps the very core of world military industrial domination. The very nature of the Internet is thus rooted in wide-area distribution effective for constant surveillance and rapid deployment of divide-and conquer strategies through distributed communications. So despite or perhaps inspite of, early utopian promise, a substantial facet of the internet, and indeed one deeply entrenched in its makeup, is its function as a medium for the distribution of text and its surveillance. Consequently what becomes clear is that computers and telecommunications, much like their historical counterparts, not only play a central role in the emergence of the current Œinformational economy¹ but also in the construction of social form. Computers and telecommunications are thus viewable as specific, pliable configurations within the larger context of what Michel Foucault calls "governmental technologies." Foucault defines the governmental technologies as "the entire set of practices used to constitute, define, organize and instrumentalize the strategies that individuals, in their freedom, can have towards each other." Governmental technologies are subtle forms of collective channelling, highly appropriate for the government of Œdemocratic societies¹ where individuals tend to reject any obvious imposition of authority. As David Lyon observes, "each expansion of surveillance occurs with a rational that, like as not, will be accepted by those whose data or personal information is handled by the system." Persuasive rationales lead to the internalization of surveillance imperatives, whereby people actively supply their data to distant watchers. One highly persuasive rationale alongside, say, the more obvious types, such as the gathering of insurance data in case of theft, is the deeply embedded notion of transparency propagated by state/capitalist spectacle. The Surveillance camera players define "transparency" as not only a physical property of certain objects, but a metaphor for a jumble of conflicting human qualities or behaviors, (honesty, bad lying, and clarity or "rationality") inherent in it the underlying assumption that neither obscurity nor opacity is to be trusted,; "hiding" is "bad" in and of itself. In other words, directly transmitted light (or meaning) is bright, clear and "truthful," and "darkness" (obscurity or opacity) is dull, stupid and "false." Phenomenon like "reality-based" television, as Baudrillard points out, are highly indicative of the proliferation of this kind of transparent ideology. Baudrillard insisted that the masses, unlike Orwell¹s predicition of coercion, violence and death, are in fact quite willing to be surveilled round-the-clock and have their private lives made transparent to the voyeuristic eyes of the entire TV-watching world. The masses internalise the functions of both surveillance spectacule: the two merging into a single simulacrum of reality, "hyper-reality." Subjected to the all consuming spectacle, the vision machine and their correspondent governmental technologies, i.e to methods inplicit in societies of control, to, in short, the home pc and telecommunications, people are conditioned by the spectacle, and thus accept the imposition of transparency, gaining Œsatisfaction from spectacle¹ So there exists an inherent and culturally programmed desire to "participate" in the spectacle of "reality" ­ as the SCP put it Œan irrational desire born of a society that is based upon passivity, spectatorship and non-intervention -- is so strong that people are willing to destroy whatever human reality their lives had in order to become "famous." Subjectivity as it is modeled and channeled by contemporary capitalism, aka the [transparent] indentity state, is thus a deeply intricate affair, consumed constructed and consumed again. A significant part of this consumption is the fact that the individual has been conditioned to "voluntarily" make him/herself transparent to the gaze of all. With this desire for transparency the individual has no qualms about the boundless information sh/e makes available and the economy of the information state works precisely on this idea of visible identity. The individual is seduced to construct a body in order to see his own body. Identity is always the consumer identity, constructed within the consumer environment. All choices of the identity involve commodification. Consequently, as Delueze points out in societies of control, what becomes important is code: the code is a password. Individuals become "dividuals," and masses, samples, data, markets, or "banks." Access to and interaction with the information economy consructs the consummer self, which is itself then recorded, surveilled and mapped and repackaged for sale. Representation not reality becomes the referent. "I am not real. I am redundant. I am simulation living in physical space. My function is to mediate the intersection between information and production. What is real? Real is the information that validates my existence as cyborg. Real is my data body--the flow of files which represent me. Correction. I represent them. The data is the original; I am the counterfeit. Look at all files that intersect my organic subjectivity: Credit files, travel files, education files, medical files, employment files, communication files, political files, tax files, investment files, consumption files, files onto infinity. Were it not for these digital abstractions, I would have no existence in the realm of the social. These files explain to others the nature of my social role and cultural identity. As an individual my input is considered contaminated. Desire is to be programed into my life by those who control my data body. My being-in-the-world is reduced to the political and economic result of my daily activities. All my actions are carefully surveilled and statistically scrutinized to make certain that I follow the commands of my program, and that I do not exceed the program's parameters." So the data body is appropriated by capital and comes to defines one's social being in the world. Governmental technologies strengthen this identity by offering to the individual unlimimted access/ instruments that further trap the body in the cycle of informatic global flows. From state surveillance, to corporate surveillance to self surveillance, we become our own watchers. The Security sate is the identity state. The Critical art ensemble thus correctly point out that the important question becomes how can control of this virtual twin be returned to the individual so he or she can again have the sovereignty to construct and control personal representation in the realm of the social? Furthermore if the data body is indicative of an absent virtual power which controls information and constructs social policy for purposes of domination, how can this virtual power be confronted (made present) and challenged by resistant forces? "Individualized attacks should focus on reappropriating one's own data body using the tactic of data corruption or deletion." The notion of the transparent identity must be publicly ridiculed, satirized, its supporting institutions attacked on political grounds, its traits exposed in cultural and artistic productions. To be effective, a cultural critique must show the links between the major articulations of power and the more-or-less trivial aesthetics of everyday life. The aesthetic dimension must appear as a contested bridge between the psyche and the objective structures of society. And so a critique of societies of control, of transparency and spectacular capitalism must happen at a personal level, at the level of identity. At the same time critique must be public practice, engaged in communicative action and indeed, communicative activism: the recreation of an oppositional culture, in forms specifically conceived to resist the inevitable attempts at co-optation. The communicational infrastructure, although that which is watching us can be turned back on itself and appropriated. Precisely the features that threaten us can be co-opted to construct and articulate communal alternative. "Increasing attempts to police the net, to establish state and corporate control will, paradoxically, increase its attractivity as a field of operation of communication guerrillas: Possibly, even those of us who until now not even own a PC will get Wired then. Fakes and false rumours inside and outside the Net may help to counteract commodification and state control - after all, the internet is an ideal area for producing rumours and fakes." Fakes//frauds//pranks//anonymous works// >>>>>> refuse participation in the economy of works by negating the basis of economy: the linkage to the singular identity. Anonymous action does not (directly, at least) translate into any economical gain, and worse, cannot be translated into an equivalence to base an economy, as the definition of the singular is lost. Is it one or many? Is there an original? How can one quantify and build equivalence without the basic unit of identity? Is economy and distribution possible without identity? How can one assure quality, make a particular pre-judgment, without the authors name / brand name? Is hierarchy and division possible without identity? Anonymous action and/or group action threaten the identity economy and the security state.¹ Enter Mrs Jeevam Jham>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mrs Jham is an middle-aged lady [- an auntie] living in Delhi, a city subjected to rigorous surveillance, routine security checks and a heavy police presence. Home to india¹s government and subsequently terroist hotspot, the city is crammed with camera¹s, security guards, and policemen. So Jham goes about her day to day activities in a tightly controlled , security heavy environment. She is used to being watched and perhaps finds watching strangely erotic. The proliferation of CCTV¹s has infiltrated the colony in which she lives and as part of the neighbourhood watch scheme she is closely involved in the setting up and maintenance of these spanking new security systems Being that great thing called middle class, she is also a consumer, entrenched in the spectacular and cyclical consumption of goods images and ideas. Her house has all the latest and most prestigious amenities and she defines herself in relation to the average auntie: wheatish complexion, decent moral values and good education [english medium school]. Her favourite TV show at the moment is POP STARS. She loves to watch those teenage girls in their quest for fame. Perhaps she too at one point dreamt of celebrity-hood. Being that great thing called middle class, Mrs jham owns a computer and thus has personally extended her data body into the realm of cyberspace, has created her own homepage and frequently offers up her data for mapping while surfing or shopping online. Mrs Jham¹s homepage is filled with personal information. She is quite adept at computers as her son is a computer engineer and so she has spent longs hours and nights constructing the perfect cyber residence. Being a considerate lady, like most aunties her age, Mrs Jham has started to visit other people¹s home pages with suggestions for Œhome improvement.¹ A perfectionist in nature she feels the need on these cyber excursions to tidy up her fellow cyborgs living rooms: moving links to the left or the right, changing the wall paper, adding a feature or two. She mails the owners of the respective homepages the newly updated version of their residence and engages in dialogue with them. How will they respond, will they feel as if their data body has been invaded, will they feel grateful to auntie for her suggestions, will they be outraged, intrigued, violated, enchazntedŠŠŠŠŠŠor might they sense that through the act of tidying up their cyberhomes something like tactic is being suggested. Disinformation, reappropriation, fakes and false rumours, anonymity, .. . . . . . . . probably notŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠŠbut stay tuned to find out. Auntie will be popping up here and there, amidst the shadows of anonymity and transcipts of her conversations with her fellow cyborgs, whose houses she has so kindly re-arranged, will be posted reguluary on her homepage presently located at either www.nungu.com/[mrs. jeevam jham] From bea at nungu.com Fri Jun 28 22:28:10 2002 From: bea at nungu.com (:bea::) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 09:58:10 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] any_ideas_ In-Reply-To: <200206280426.g5S4Q8Iv006862@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: a few days a go nungu posted a proposal that has been funded by rhizome.org on the list. the problem is that now logistics come into play. does anyone in the sarai commnity know of where it might be possible to locate a cam other than sarai. the project proposes to police public space and nungu feels that the sarai compound may not entirely fit that description. nungu is looking for a location with a cable//ethernet connection, in a central location, were the cam cam be installed semi permanently. can anyone help? pratap? debjani? rana? any ideas From zamrooda at sarai.net Fri Jun 28 13:29:44 2002 From: zamrooda at sarai.net (zamrooda) Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 13:29:44 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Notes from the court-4 Message-ID: <02062813294400.00881@legal.sarai.kit> Delhi HIgh Court The High Court of Delhi was established on 31st October, 1966. Initially, the High Court of Judicature at Lahore, which was established by a Letters Patent dated 21st March, 1919, exercised jurisdiction over the then provinces of the Punjab and Delhi. This position continued till the Indian Independence Act, 1947 when the dominions of India and Pakistan were created. The High Courts (Punjab) Order, 1947 established a new High Court for the territory of what was then called the East Punjab with effect from 15th August, 1947. The India (Adaptation of Existing Indian Laws) Order, 1947 provided that any reference in an existing Indian law to the High Court of Judicature at Lahore, be replaced by a reference to the High Court of East Punjab. The High Court of East Punjab started functioning from Shimla in a building called "Peterhoff". This building burnt down in January, 1981. When the Secretariat of the Punjab Government shifted to Chandigarh in 1954-55, the High Court also shifted to Chandigarh. The High Court of Punjab, as it is later came to be called, exercised jurisdiction over Delhi through a Circuit Bench which dealt with the cases pertaining to the Union Territory of Delhi and the Delhi Administration. In view of the importance of Delhi, its population and other considerations, Parliament thought it necessary to establish a new High Court of Delhi. This was achieved by enacting the Delhi High Court Act, 1966 on 5th September, 1966. By virtue of Section 3(1) of the Delhi High Court Act, the Central Government was empowered to appoint a date by a notification in the official gazette, establishing a High Court for the Union Territory of Delhi. The appointed date was 31st October, 1966. The High Court of Delhi initially exercised jurisdiction not only over the Union Territory of Delhi, but also Himachal Pradesh. The High Court of Delhi had a Himachal Pradesh Bench at Shimla in a building called Ravenswood. The High Court of Delhi continued to exercise jurisdiction over Himachal Pradesh until the State of Himachal Pradesh Act, 1970 was enforced on 25th January, 1971. The High Court of Delhi was established with four Judges. They were Chief Justice K.S.Hegde, Justice I.D.Dua, Justice H.R.Khanna and Justice S.K.Kapur. The sanctioned strength of Judges of this High Court increased from time to time. Presently, the sanctioned strength of Judges of the High Court of Delhi is 27 permanent Judges and 6 Additional Judges. ------------------------------------------------------- From bhochka at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 29 19:21:17 2002 From: bhochka at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?aditya=20sarkar?=) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 14:51:17 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Yazad Jal's postings Message-ID: <20020629135117.60546.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> This is a response to Yazad Jal's latest posting on Palestine. "I feel that posts on Israel to the sarai list are way too one sided largely equating everything Palestinian with "good" and everything Israeli with "evil." " I don't think that this is the way people like Edward Said and others whose writings are regularly posted on the sarai list, view the issues in the Middle East. There's no question of an unthinking support for `everything Palestinian'. The point remains - the Israeli state is involved in the longest official military occupation the world has seen. Said - and he isn't alone - has been consistently vocal in his denunciation of Arafat and the corruption of the Palestinian leadership. Nor do all those who are horrified by the murderous nature of the Israeli occupation support fundamentalist responses to the same, as Yazad Jal seems to believe. Since the Intifada began, the number of Palestinian deaths has been four times the number of Israeli deaths. One and a half million people in the Gaza Strip are packed by the Israeli state into a tiny barbed-wire enclosure. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are subjected to restrictions and humiliations worse than those suffered by the victims of apartheid. Within Israeli territories, Palestinians are treated much the same, ironically, as Jews were treated in 1930s Germany. It's the same logic at work. "We may critique Ariel Sharon's policies forever, but the fault lies on both sides. I don't see Palestinian suicide bombings as "a holy duty" as some mothers of future suicide bombers too (see "I hope to be a martyr," posted today). Israeli over reactions do not help." Here we have the arguments that enjoy hegemony in the Western media - and, frighteningly, almost entirely unchallenged hegemony in the US media - repackaged in their crudest form. It's difficult to know exactly how to respond to this, but some points do occur. 1. It is not a matter of critiquing Ariel Sharon's policies, as opposed to Barak's or Rabin's. Yes, there are degrees of cruelty and butchery involved, but the logic of successive Israeli governments - of the Israeli state since its inception - is the same. The assumption is this: it is permissible for the Israeli state to hound out people who live legitimately on their land, to extend colonial occupation through wave after wave of brutal land grabs, and to subject Palestinians to a system of apartheid - AND YET NEVER HAVE ITS LEGITIMACY QUESTIONED. Because that is the point - Palestinian suicide bombings are routinely condemned, and rightly so - both for the destruction they cause and the mindset they breed. No one is negotiating deals with suicide bombers, or according them a place in the UN. Suicide bombers are NOT legitimized by the discourse of international relations. What, then, about a state that respects the lives and rights of millions of Palestinians as little as suicide bombers respect those of Israelis? It's Bush's recently demonstrated logic - `American lives are worth more than Afghan lives' - in a different, but not very different, context. How can Israel be accorded this kind of monstrous legitimacy in its destructive and repressive mission? 2. `Israeli over-reactions do not help.' How, how, HOW does someone respond to this, to the RIDICULOUS notion that Israeli military action is merely a necessary though somewhat excessive `reaction' to suicide bombings and Palestinian terrorism? A few basic facts - the recitation of which should be completely unnecessary - might help a little. a) Israel was founded in 1948. Very soon, 68 per cent of the native population of the land had been expelled. Since 1967, Palestinians have been living in the grip of a colonial military occupation that has no justification ( forget the question of human rights, those dispensable and irritating variables ) in any system or interpretation of international law. This occupation has been consolidated, extended, and progressively brutalized since 1967. Successive international appeals by the Palestinians for justice and humanity were blithely ignored by the powers-that-matter. It was in this context - not before this - that violence emerged in the Palestinian movement(s). Who's `reacting' here? And who is it who's being proactive? The Israeli military, nurtured lovingly by the protector of world democracy, commands state-of-the-art military technology: fighter-bombers, helicopter gunships, a superb and tested intelligence service. And it makes use of it: F-16 jets are routinely sent to bomb Palestinians. Who's `reacting' here? Who are the greater victims? It should seem ludicrous, and at best laboured and tedious, to make points like these and raise questions like this. Sadly, it seems it isn't. I am expressing no support or sympathy for the morbid fanaticism of Palestinian suicide bombers. I'm detached enough to be able to hate Israel's guts but also take a stand against terrorism of this kind. Would I react in this way if I were a Palestinian? I'm not sure. And this in a way is the greatest crime of the Israeli state - to have created ( and YES, it was THEY who created it ) an atmosphere of brutality and terror and an ethic of murder that is so overwhelming that, to its victims, there can be no responses, however brutal, that seem unjustified. Needless to say, I do not sympathize with terrorist reactions. Needless to say, my house and my family weren't bombed into atoms by an Israeli air attack yesterday. One last word. Recently, Cherie Blair publicly bemoaned the fact that Palestinians were forced to live in an atmosphere where their youth felt there was no alternative to terrorism. There was a huge hullaballoo about this, she was forced to detract her `insensitive' statements, which apparently betrayed sympathy for the suicide bombers ( I didn't read it that way ), and apologize. Would she have been forced to detract if she had ( let us say ) saluted the Israeli government for dealing with terrorism in the way that it does, and for the way it has furthered the `peace process' ( that strange and mythical animal )? I think it all comes back to what Chomsky has said, repeatedly - as with everything he says, it's obvious but no one seems to have the eyes to see. Terrorist actions that are small enough will get noticed, routinely and rightly condemned. But if you - aka the United States, Israel or Pinochet - manage to kill people in sufficiently large numbers, oppress them successfully in adequately brutal ways for a sufficient period of time ( and, of course, if you're on the Right side - terrible pun, but intended ), there's a fair chance that you'll just be seen as a bold statesman who takes difficult decisions, maybe a little crass in your methods, but essentially open to reason. That's all. Once again, every line of this should have been unnecessary, but it isn't. That's the biggest tragedy of all. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com From bhochka at yahoo.co.uk Sat Jun 29 19:21:24 2002 From: bhochka at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?aditya=20sarkar?=) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 14:51:24 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Yazad Jal's postings Message-ID: <20020629135124.79489.qmail@web21411.mail.yahoo.com> This is a response to Yazad Jal's latest posting on Palestine. "I feel that posts on Israel to the sarai list are way too one sided largely equating everything Palestinian with "good" and everything Israeli with "evil." " I don't think that this is the way people like Edward Said and others whose writings are regularly posted on the sarai list, view the issues in the Middle East. There's no question of an unthinking support for `everything Palestinian'. The point remains - the Israeli state is involved in the longest official military occupation the world has seen. Said - and he isn't alone - has been consistently vocal in his denunciation of Arafat and the corruption of the Palestinian leadership. Nor do all those who are horrified by the murderous nature of the Israeli occupation support fundamentalist responses to the same, as Yazad Jal seems to believe. Since the Intifada began, the number of Palestinian deaths has been four times the number of Israeli deaths. One and a half million people in the Gaza Strip are packed by the Israeli state into a tiny barbed-wire enclosure. Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are subjected to restrictions and humiliations worse than those suffered by the victims of apartheid. Within Israeli territories, Palestinians are treated much the same, ironically, as Jews were treated in 1930s Germany. It's the same logic at work. "We may critique Ariel Sharon's policies forever, but the fault lies on both sides. I don't see Palestinian suicide bombings as "a holy duty" as some mothers of future suicide bombers too (see "I hope to be a martyr," posted today). Israeli over reactions do not help." Here we have the arguments that enjoy hegemony in the Western media - and, frighteningly, almost entirely unchallenged hegemony in the US media - repackaged in their crudest form. It's difficult to know exactly how to respond to this, but some points do occur. 1. It is not a matter of critiquing Ariel Sharon's policies, as opposed to Barak's or Rabin's. Yes, there are degrees of cruelty and butchery involved, but the logic of successive Israeli governments - of the Israeli state since its inception - is the same. The assumption is this: it is permissible for the Israeli state to hound out people who live legitimately on their land, to extend colonial occupation through wave after wave of brutal land grabs, and to subject Palestinians to a system of apartheid - AND YET NEVER HAVE ITS LEGITIMACY QUESTIONED. Because that is the point - Palestinian suicide bombings are routinely condemned, and rightly so - both for the destruction they cause and the mindset they breed. No one is negotiating deals with suicide bombers, or according them a place in the UN. Suicide bombers are NOT legitimized by the discourse of international relations. What, then, about a state that respects the lives and rights of millions of Palestinians as little as suicide bombers respect those of Israelis? It's Bush's recently demonstrated logic - `American lives are worth more than Afghan lives' - in a different, but not very different, context. How can Israel be accorded this kind of monstrous legitimacy in its destructive and repressive mission? 2. `Israeli over-reactions do not help.' How, how, HOW does someone respond to this, to the RIDICULOUS notion that Israeli military action is merely a necessary though somewhat excessive `reaction' to suicide bombings and Palestinian terrorism? A few basic facts - the recitation of which should be completely unnecessary - might help a little. a) Israel was founded in 1948. Very soon, 68 per cent of the native population of the land had been expelled. Since 1967, Palestinians have been living in the grip of a colonial military occupation that has no justification ( forget the question of human rights, those dispensable and irritating variables ) in any system or interpretation of international law. This occupation has been consolidated, extended, and progressively brutalized since 1967. Successive international appeals by the Palestinians for justice and humanity were blithely ignored by the powers-that-matter. It was in this context - not before this - that violence emerged in the Palestinian movement(s). Who's `reacting' here? And who is it who's being proactive? The Israeli military, nurtured lovingly by the protector of world democracy, commands state-of-the-art military technology: fighter-bombers, helicopter gunships, a superb and tested intelligence service. And it makes use of it: F-16 jets are routinely sent to bomb Palestinians. Who's `reacting' here? Who are the greater victims? It should seem ludicrous, and at best laboured and tedious, to make points like these and raise questions like this. Sadly, it seems it isn't. I am expressing no support or sympathy for the morbid fanaticism of Palestinian suicide bombers. I'm detached enough to be able to hate Israel's guts but also take a stand against terrorism of this kind. Would I react in this way if I were a Palestinian? I'm not sure. And this in a way is the greatest crime of the Israeli state - to have created ( and YES, it was THEY who created it ) an atmosphere of brutality and terror and an ethic of murder that is so overwhelming that, to its victims, there can be no responses, however brutal, that seem unjustified. Needless to say, I do not sympathize with terrorist reactions. Needless to say, my house and my family weren't bombed into atoms by an Israeli air attack yesterday. One last word. Recently, Cherie Blair publicly bemoaned the fact that Palestinians were forced to live in an atmosphere where their youth felt there was no alternative to terrorism. There was a huge hullaballoo about this, she was forced to detract her `insensitive' statements, which apparently betrayed sympathy for the suicide bombers ( I didn't read it that way ), and apologize. Would she have been forced to detract if she had ( let us say ) saluted the Israeli government for dealing with terrorism in the way that it does, and for the way it has furthered the `peace process' ( that strange and mythical animal )? I think it all comes back to what Chomsky has said, repeatedly - as with everything he says, it's obvious but no one seems to have the eyes to see. Terrorist actions that are small enough will get noticed, routinely and rightly condemned. But if you - aka the United States, Israel or Pinochet - manage to kill people in sufficiently large numbers, oppress them successfully in adequately brutal ways for a sufficient period of time ( and, of course, if you're on the Right side - terrible pun, but intended ), there's a fair chance that you'll just be seen as a bold statesman who takes difficult decisions, maybe a little crass in your methods, but essentially open to reason. That's all. Once again, every line of this should have been unnecessary, but it isn't. That's the biggest tragedy of all. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Everything you'll ever need on one web page from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts http://uk.my.yahoo.com From slumbug at rediffmail.com Sat Jun 29 21:20:16 2002 From: slumbug at rediffmail.com (slumbug) Date: 29 Jun 2002 15:50:16 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Surveillance Message-ID: <20020629155016.19603.qmail@webmail24.rediffmail.com> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020629/20b9cfb9/attachment.pl From starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk Sat Jun 29 17:30:21 2002 From: starchild at anjalika.demon.co.uk (Anjali Sagar) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 21:00:21 +0900 Subject: [Reader-list] Online petition against censorship of Anand's film In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Renowned Indian filmmaker Anand Patwardhan is facing obstacles once again with the Indian Censor Board, who are intent on preventing screenings of his latest award-winning documentary "War and Peace" in India. Please sign an online petition in support of filmmaker Anand Patwardhan: http://www.petitionOnline.com/ekta_wp/petition.html Please remember to check the "Email Address Privacy Option" to "Available to Petition Author"; this will enable the petition author to contact you regarding any future updates with the petition, if required. Your email address will not be used for any other purposes. More on the films of Anand Patwardhan at: http://patwardhan.ektaonline.org -------------------------------------------------- Excerpts from Press Statement, 14 June 2002 -------------------------------------------------- "War and Peace begins and ends with the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi. Focusing on the danger of nuclear war in the Indian subcontinent the video goes on to describe the problems faced by people living near nuclear testing and mining sites, the horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the culpability of the USA in using Atom bombs on a nation that was about to surrender, the globalization of the arms trade, but most of all it derives its power and emotional appeal from the growing movement for peace both in India and in Pakistan. Unfortunately in both countries there is an invisible force that does not want peace, a force that has come to power precisely by spreading divisiveness within the country and the sustained threat of war outside it. This force has cynically used concepts of religion and patriotism to hide its own hate-corrupted psyche and has sought to muzzle the voices of all those who speak out for health, harmony and peace. So it will not be enough to demand merely that films like "War and Peace" be passed without cuts. Officials of the Censor Board must be made to understand that their brief cannot be to wield their scissors in the interests of particular ideologies. We must demand that the Censor Board and all the vital institutions in our country be freed from the undemocratic grip of "the invisible force". Anand Patwardhan Complete text at: http://patwardhan.ektaonline.org/press/061402.htm -------------------------------------------------- ------------------TEXT OF PETITION---------------- -------------------------------------------------- To: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India Re: PROTECT FREE SPEECH: FILMMAKER PATWARDHAN'S "WAR AND PEACE" We, the undersigned, wish to bring to your notice our deep concern about the plight of Anand Patwardhan's award-winning documentary "War and Peace" submitted over a month ago for certification to the Censor Board. We urge you to take speedy measures to release the film to the general public without any further delay. "War and Peace" is a three-hour long documentary that has won several awards, including two major awards at the recently concluded 7th Mumbai International Film Festival, an event organized by the Films Division of India (FDI), a governmental body that falls under your purview. The film's message of peace and religious tolerance acts like a soothing balm in a world today that is deeply fractured by the politics of hatred and violence. In view of the horror in Gujarat and the dangers of nuclear catastrophe, there is an urgent need to build peace both within the country and without. Given the enormous significance of the film in the context, we are indeed astounded that the Censor Board appears to be delaying the film's release instead of taking all possible steps to expedite it and arrange for its widest distribution. While, according to official admission, the film has not been banned, censor board officials have been proactively stopping private screenings of "War and Peace" even in such cases where prior permission was obtained for the screening. For instance the FDI obtained special permission from May 31st in Kolkata to screen award winning films regardless of whether these had censor certificates. The screening was however blocked and the organizers, obviously under pressure from above, insisted that a copy of the film "hadn't arrived", even though a signed receipt disproves their claim. After the examining committee saw the film on June 6, Patwardhan was not given a chance to meet the examiners on the pretext that "there was no consensus" in the group. The following week he was issued a notice to cut many portions of the film. These include the diktat: "Delete the entire sequence with visuals and dialogue spoken by Dalit leader" and "Delete the visuals and dialogues of entire tehelka episode wherever it occurs in the film" and "Delete the entire visuals and dialogues spoken by Political Leaders including the Minister and Prime Minister." These are astonishing demands that cut at the very roots of democracy. Our right to freedom of expression and our right to information are protected under the constitution. We find these actions of the Censor Board to be unbelievable and deeply disturbing. We urge you to take immediate steps to arrange for the speedy release of the film without cuts. Sincerely, Undersigned -------------------------------------------------- Please sign at http://www.petitionOnline.com/ekta_wp/petition.html -------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------- EKTA email: info at ektaonline.org website: http://www.ektaonline.org Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From pnanpin at yahoo.co.in Sun Jun 30 03:05:11 2002 From: pnanpin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?pratap=20pandey?=) Date: Sat, 29 Jun 2002 22:35:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Let's think, now Message-ID: <20020629213511.94829.qmail@web8106.mail.in.yahoo.com> Dear all, I give you this thought, written somewhere alse: "Are the social forums and global days of action - basically constructed of these easily bifurcating communities - ever going to be a match for the discipline and disappointments of organized parties and parliaments? Is there politics on the Internet?" We are looking here at an outburst. You might construe this outburst to be emotional (and therefore something that can be rejected). Yet there is a message in this outburst: can we get political? To me, this is the question that this outburst demands. It can be read as psychological angst. It can be read as mislead idealism. It can even be read as pure vouyerism. But that is not the point of the outburst, I feel (a quote I have copied from another list). The point of the outburst is that it touches me. I hope, dear all, it touches you. Consider the unknown context of the phrase "these easily bifurcating communities". To me, it holds meaning, irrespective of what the writer meant. I have picked up this text, and treat it as such. Now I want to know what the text-readers feel about this bit of epistemological detail. You dudes, tell me. Tell me, you dudes. Is there politics on the internet? We knowing people would nod and snigger and so cover over the question. But I ask you: is there politics on the Reader-list? It seems to me that this Reader-list is so watched over by Dudes that nobody can say anything. Either we follow their language (which is dead, historically speaking)), or remain silent. Even worse, we choose not to speak at all. What is this? Are we dead, or alive, or merely looking for plum postings (on zizek et al)? Is this List "ever going to be a match for the discipline and disappointments of organized parties and parliaments?" To say this is to desire of this List a huge ambition. It is to say that this List is primarily political, and not the last resort of furstrated intellectuals (such as, according to a very senior academic, I am). It is to say that this List has things to say that cannot be said anywhere else. Have not all of us who refer to this List (for whatever reasons, instrumental, functional, or "frustrated") referred to it because we have found a space where we can say the things that we want to? Yet, why is it that when I read this person's comment, I feel s/he is talking not so much about the Internet, but the bloody List? "discipline and disappoinments": What a phrase. Recently, I asked about a "list" pertainaing to the way the government wishes to place hidden protocols of surveillance on those on the Net. The "list" was about the technology being used. The "military grade" equipment. To "read" and "watch" over every word written. Who is going to decide whether a word, or phrase, is "patriotic" or "terrorist"? Are we an alternative? Of sharing info., at least? Of trying to be political in a time when our politics has been completely shattered by the fascists? When the fascists have paraded their ability to kill at a time when we are are still deciding what is the epistemological basis of action? Is this the time to decide? Or is this the time to counter fascism? Will you be educated (or should I say skilled) and silent? Will you let a fascist government so roll over you that you will not acknowledge the fact that it has run over your intelligence? Let us consider this phrase: "the discipline and disappointments of organized parties and parliaments". This is a frightening phrase. All of us pride ourselves on the fact that we dont belong to organized parties. As far as we are concerned, that's a complete and educated sin. Yet, we are faced with a situation where what we think is good is being completely overhauled elsewhere, and returned to us as exactly the opposite of what we thought was "good". Yet, we think we are the purveyors of what constitutes "civil society". We believe so. Somehow, if this belief is taken away from us, we will resist. We will shrug our shoulders. We will raise our eyebrows. We will be shocked. But we will not do anything to "correct" the situation. We cannot. We are so informed about the current situation that we care a fuck about the future. We are so glib about the present that the future can go to hell (or the Hindutva brigade). It is not our responsibility to produce a knowledge about the present. The Hindutva brigade is well-informed enough to leave us alone. In fact, we depend on them to produce some more books of radical promise. We are informed, are we not? Especially by post-modernism? By the texts of Semiotexte? Just because the University of California, Berkeley, decides it knows the future of knowledge do we have have to decide so? Hence Baubrillard, and Verilio? We have to deal with more basic facts. Like, inequality. Like, unemployment. Like, the mobilisation of a lumpenised population fed on dreams of ethnic (actually upper-class) glory. Where is this List? Have we lost it? yours, pp --------------------------------- Don't miss Yahoo India's Coverage of 2002 FIFA World Cup -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020629/fda28afb/attachment.html From savithri at nagpur.dot.net.in Sun Jun 9 19:49:10 2002 From: savithri at nagpur.dot.net.in (Savithri Ananth) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 19:49:10 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Wenlido-Pl circulate Message-ID: <006301c20fce$7ee1c4c0$6b7a013d@o2s0y3> Combat violence on womyn with Wenlido Violence against womyn is an ever present and growing phenomenon. Womyn and young girls are subjected to violence in many forms - sexual harassment, molestation, rape, during riots, war, on the roads, on buses, at the workplace and unfortunately even within the home. While campaigns against violence address the structural reasons for violence against womyn in a patriarchal society, empowering initiatives that enhance personal -safety skills also play a significant role in dealing with violence. 'Wenlido' (translates as 'womyn's path of strength) 'helps womyn connect with their strength, overturning centuries of conditioning, which convinces womyn that they are the 'weaker sex'. As much as learning techniques of physical self-defense, Wenlido training involves the evolution of a Womyn from a passive victim into a strong capable individual who can control her own life. In India we womyn suffer a great deal from a sense of powerlessness over our lives especially in close relations. On the Physical and Emotional level Wenlido offers 'ways out' of formerly thought of 'stuck (powerless)' situations. As well in the discussions a lot of emphasis is put on finding solutions. Solutions that empower us as individuals. This relates to many levels of our realities. In the workshop not only womyn learn to protect themselves, but also how to recognize potentially dangerous situations early on, how to respond verbally effectively when harassed, become aware of personal boundaries, problem solve together on how to stay safe and get out of inner victim mode. Praghathisheel Mahila Sanghathan (Pramas) from Chandrapur is interested in taking up this empowering Wenlido Basic workshops for womyn. One of our activists is a trained Wenlido instructor. She was part of the first batch of Wenlido Instructors in India. Wenlido - the feminist self defense was developed in Canada to help womyn survive violence. Gitta Ridder a Wenlidoka from Canada got an overwhelming response in India last year for the basic workshops. This year for the first time she trained Wenlido instructors in India. The recently organized Wenlido workshop in Chandrapur raised the confidence as well as consciousness of the participants of the workshop. The Wenlido workshop combines Physical techniques as well as consciousness raising discussions resulting in a profound transformation of the participants. In the workshops it could be perceived that womyn were getting thrilled, excited and inspired and were eagerly sustaining themselves in the 16 hour workshop without any boredom. Wenlido training can be taken by any womyn right from the age of 12 to womyn even above 60. Womyn belonging to any background - whether she is rich or poor, urban or rural, illiterate or highly educated, conservative or progressive, non political or highly political can take advantage of this workshop. In fact it is a highly essential personal tool which every womyn irrespective of her class, caste, religion, region, politics, educational background, age, level of consciousness and other differences should posses and will benefit from. How much ever a Womyn may get educated, conscious, or advance in life there is always a lurking fear that in an actual situation of physical assault we may become helpless or easy victims. Womyn challenging patriarchal norms are often mocked at by saying that "she will know her status only when she is assaulted !". This creates a deep seated inferiority complex in womyn and creates hurdles in her development. Learning martial Arts is not an easy solution to combat violence on womyn. It is because Martial arts require years of disciplined training the time for which every womyn does not have. Besides these Martial arts are mainly designed for men and does not help womyn in gaining consciousness and confidence as it does not address the issues related to the patriarchal system which oppresses womyn. That's why there have been known cases where female martial art champions ended up paralyzing in fear, inspite of being highly skilled. Yet we have had wenlido students who after 16 hours of training successfully responded in situations of violence and left unharmed. They took control of the situation, got in touch with their strength and had the confidence to act in order to get away. Thus Wenlido within a short span of 16 hours transforms womyn from a helpless, choice less and powerless person to one who can take control of the situation. Womyn get in touch with their own strength, their own bodies and their confidence is raised manifold. Pramas would like to take basic workshops for womyn with the view to get them acquainted with what is Wenlido so that they themselves can take a decision regarding training instructors in future and carry forward these effective techniques to other womyn. Wenlido could be an alternative, a new way of life for womyn. Womyn committed to social change and community work would find it highly inspiring as they can actually see the difference they can make in the lives of womyn. It would be a boon for the womyn's movement in India if several womyn come forward to train womyn in facing the most difficult situations of life. Since at present Praghathisheel Mahila Sanghathan has only one trained instructor for facilitating basic Wenlido workshops and she is also involved in so many other responsibilities we would be giving priority to womyn who are serious in pursuing Wenlido in future also and would like to be trained as instructors. If we have a team of committed womyn who are willing to take the responsibility of carrying forward this mission we can request Gitta Ridder from Canada to come back to India for training more trainers. Of course her trip to India depends on the availability of funds and the coming together of other positive factors. The Wenlido group in Canada is not funded by the government, Capitalists or any other corporate or imperialist agencies. It is solely sustained on the basis of the contributions received from Individual womyn. Gitta Ridder is a feminist totally committed to the cause of womyn and leads a very simple life. Her trips to India have been financed by the Wenlido group and by other womyn sympathetic to the cause. In India her travel and other expenses have been met by the local womyn's groups. Contributions for her tour to India would be welcome. In order to take maximum advantage of the training for trainers it would be good if womyn are acquainted with the basics in advance and are mentally prepared for taking up advanced training and the mission forward. Praghathisheel Mahila Sanghathan (Pramas) is a womyn's organization committed to change the patriarchal system which oppresses womyn. It has been involved in consciousness raising, campaigns, struggles and various activities with the ultimate goal of establishing an egalitarian society. Right from the village level , to the all India and International level we are creating alliances with the various marginalized and oppressed sections of the people with a view to build up a strong movement to change the entire oppressive and exploitative socio-economic and political system. We have been actively involved in fora like the Committee against violence for womyn, National Coordination Committee Organizing conferences of the womyn's movement, Forum against imperialist Globalization, International league of Peoples struggle etc. We do not accept funds from Government or any imperialist foreign funding agencies. We believe that a genuine movement can only be built from the contributions, efforts, struggles and sacrifices of the people. We urge upon you to join hands in this movement. Guidelines for organizing Wenlido workshops:- 1. The workshop is strictly for womyn and ideally for a batch of not more than 10. 2. The 16 hour workshop can ideally be spread over 2 days starting from 9.AM to 6 P.M. 3. The place where the workshop is organized should be spacious, peaceful and covered so that there cannot be any onlookers and disturbances. 4. The womyn coming for the workshop should be punctual and disciplined and attend the workshop for the whole of 16 hours without missing any part of it. 5. The womyn coming for the workshop can dress up in their usual attires in which they are most comfortable - preferably loose cotton dresses like Salwar Kameez etc. 6. The participants are requested to make a minimum contribution of Rs 50/- as a donation for the womyn's movement. It is expected that working womyn with an income source make a contribution equivalent to a days wage for Wenlido and the womyn's movement. For more details about Wenlido and the reports of Gitta Ridder's tour in India you can visit the Wenlido site in Canada at the following website:- http://www.kwantlen.bc.ca/pscm/wenlido/ You can get in touch with us by email at - asavithri at indiatimes.com, savithrpramas at yahoo.co.in geetax2000 at indiatimes.com, Our Postal address is : Savithri Praghathisheel Mahila Sangathan Quarter No 3 Type III Central Excise Colony Jagannath Baba Nagar Chandrapur. Maharashtra Phone:07172-276985 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20020609/01af61b2/attachment.html